In the past when couples were lonely and hurting in their marriage, they kept silent or eventually gave up on their marriage.  There were few places to go that would embrace their needs in love and with encouragement to facilitate healing.

Seeds of Bridge To Life Ministries were planted in 1981 when Don and Becky Smith (co-founders of Bridge To Life) were approached by a couple in the throes of divorce.  The couple had exchanged vows with the hope and dreams of every young couple, to “live happily ever after.”  Yet with years of unresolved wounds that led to increasing hurts in their marriage, they found themselves unhappy and hopeless in their marriage.

Although the couple’s marriage proceeded to a legal termination, Don and Becky continued to work with each of the partners.  Their untiring efforts continued for months and led to a deep compassion and understanding of the couple’s hurts and root problems.  God worked deeply in the couple’s lives to build what had never been experienced…a commitment to love and be loved, even in difficult moments.  Eventually the couple remarried and unified their three children to restore a loving home.

This experience of seeing God’s restorative power in this first couple’s marriage and many that followed, prompted Don and Becky Smith to establish Bridge To Life Ministries in 1983.  Since it’s inception, Bridge To Life has offered counseling, encouragement and mentoring for couples and marriage seminars and retreats

Bridge To Life has become a ministry that exists for the purpose of bringing people to the person of Jesus Christ through the felt needs of marriage relationships. The ministry’s main focus is on marriages and has three fundamental components:  The Heart & Soul of a Real Marriage, course work addressing specific marital needs, a full-time Biblically based, Christian marriage counseling practice in Muskegon and Grace Groups designed to help spouses work through specific wounds that affect their marriage.

Over the years Bridge To Life has identified underlying root issues that destroy intimacy in a marriage, which has resulted in writing the 12-week marriage restoration program, The Heart & Soul of a Real Marriage, (formally, R&R Rebuild & Restore Your Marriage) which is the ministry’s flagship course.

Bridge To Life offers The Heart & Soul of a Real Marriage in Western Michigan and also helps train churches to minister to marriages using the Heart & Soul program across the United States and also internationally.