"I've got to lay the cards on the table," Dr. Paul Kucera told James Lolly and his wife, Barbie. "She's ate-up with cancer. She might have a year to live." James and Barbie sat speechless.They had faced hardship before.

James first experienced hardship as a 10-year-old when his parents divorced. Reeling from the broken home, James found friendship in the school kids and the drugs they used. For the next 25 years, James said, his life consisted of drugs and alcohol. "I thought my life was complete because I could do what I wanted to do," James said. "I called my own shots. I thought the drugs and alcohol gave me everything I needed."

While serving in the Army at Ft. Lewis, Wash., James met and married Barbie, a Christian from Portland, Ore. Barbie's Christian convictions and love for people impressed James. "I saw something in her," James said. "She had a heart for people that I didn't see in the drug world. There it was a dog-eat-dog world. You were No. 1, and nobody else mattered."

For Barbie, everyone mattered. "She always wanted to help people," James said, "to reach out to them and to do whatever she could in any way she could." Over the years, James watched Barbie. If a dinner needed cooking,Barbie cooked it. Or if a house needed cleaning, Barbie cleaned it. Barbie never preached, "James, you are going to burn in hell," even though she hated his lifestyle.

"I'd go on a drinking or a drug binge," he said. "I might go off [for] four days, maybe even a week, partying. But when I would come back to the house, she'd be there to open the front door for me." Once, James asked Barbie, "Why do you keep putting up with this? You know most women wouldn't." "I love you," Barbie said. "I took our vows seriously. I'm praying."

Then in March, 1990, Dr. Kucera diagnosed Barbie with cancer. Barbie had survived cervical cancer several years earlier. The cancer had returned. It had attached to her right hip and like spider's legs extended throughout her body. This time, Dr. Kucera said, she would not survive. Despite immediate chemotherapy, James and Barbie knew it was useless.

Then one day, Barbie asked James to commit his life to Jesus Christ. "Let me think about this," James said. Barbie would die, James reasoned. but, he could make her last months more peaceful by becoming a Christian. One month later, James agreed to become a Christian. "If this is what you want," he said, "I'll do this for you."

Pastor Knodel, Barbie's pastor came to their house that night. He explained to James that Jesus died on the cross for him, that God would forgive James of all his sins, and that James must give up alcohol and drugs. "OK," James said. "I was half-hearted, but sincere because of Barbie.

"I accepted the Lord and almost instantly I felt a change come over me--almost like a feeling of peace. I didn't want to party anymore. I didn't want to do my drugs and alcohol." When people came by with drugs and alcohol, James told them, "I don't want to do that anymore."

James faithfully attended church. Every night, he and Barbie read the Bible and prayed together. Every week, Pastor Knodel met and prayed with the couple.

"Even though I knew I was going to lose her, I felt peace," James said. Through the Bible, James learned that though Barbie's body would be "put in the ground," her spirit would "continue to be with the Lord." "I felt comfortable knowing Barbie was going to heaven," he said.

On March 30, 1992, Barbie died exactly one year after Dr. Kucera's diagnosis. James said while he hugged Barbie that night, she rolled on her back--something she had never done in their 13 years of marriage--and 10 minutes later pointed toward the ceiling. "The gates are open," Barbie said. "I'm going in now." Then she took her last breath.

Eight years later, James is a senior in the pastoral program at Multnomah Bible College. And he just finished an associate pastoral internship at New Life Church under Pastor Knodel.