By Leah MarieAnn Klett
Rebecca Crews will forever remember the night she didn’t think her husband, NFL player-turned-actor Terry Crews, was coming home.
“My husband and I had gone through a really bitter breakup, and we were trying to rebuild our marriage when we got into a verbal fight,” she recalled. “I’d always had these inner fears of rejection and abandonment, and so often, when we would fight, my husband would grab his things and leave. He would abandon me there with all my feelings. And it would always leave me in this frozen, fearful state. I would sit there, holding my breath, rocking in the chair with my pillow because my greatest fear was him leaving me. I couldn’t pray. I couldn’t talk. It just was this bitter dark void that I could not find expression for.”
After sitting there for what “felt like an eternity,” Crews felt the strength to cry out, “God, what do I do?” Instantly, she heard God speak to tell her: “Write, Rebecca.”
“My hands instantly fell to the keyboard, and the song ‘Breathless’ came to me in about 10 minutes,” the 55-year-old speaker and author shared. “That started a journey with my writing, where I write whatever is going on in my life. I write about some of the pain that I’ve gone through, write about some of the things people have shared with me, their stories of heartbreak — and God’s faithfulness.”
Married for 32 years with five children, the Crews have weathered unthinkable storms together, from Rebecca’s “incredibly painful” discovery of Terry’s infidelity to his decadeslong porn addiction — issues the couple candidly discusses in their memoir, Stronger Together.
“I believe that I should respect, reverence, and allow my husband to lead our family,” she said. “I do not, however, believe I’m supposed to be a doormat. And in many ways, I was. And there was abuse in my family that allowed me to be codependent and abuse in his family that gave him a chip on his shoulder. And at the time, the church didn’t help, because sometimes the church can be so accommodating of male failure and expecting the wives to look the other way by forgiving.”
But after years of counseling and rebuilding their marriage, the couple is today “stronger than ever” and share their story to inspire and uplift others.
“Today, I look at my husband, and I always say he’s a better man than me. He took hold of the Word of God, and he took hold of the Scriptures, and he just ran with all his might. He said, ‘God, I don’t want to be like this anymore.’ And he amazes me every day. He really is the kinder, gentler version of Terry Crews because he let God do a work in his life,” Crews shared.
“We are by no means perfect, but I love the relationship we have today. It’s free from fear.”
