Greg Sykes – Flipped

At the time of that accident I had actually lost my voice completely and our marriage was on the rocks. So, I wasn’t able to sing or could hardly speak and I was like, “God, what else can go wrong?” In the end He used every one of those scenarios for good. At the scene of that accident, there were a couple of nurses walking by from our church who saw it happen. There was a lawyer at the stoplight in his BMW who saw it happen and then chased the guy down. The nurses were able to take care of my wife and daughter and they ended up being fine in the end, apart from some injuries that they got over. My voice eventually came back. My wife and I just celebrated 11 years of marriage, which is amazing. Now, there was a whole bunch in there that we had to do and change, but at the same time a lot of it is just the sovereign kindness of God through it all…taking what we thought was going to wreck us, but now we can use it in our story to explain how God can actually work the things that look like “the end” in our lives for good.

CCM: Unfortunately, there a lot of people dealing with marriage struggles—even many who may be reading this right now. How has faith stepped in to be the catalyst, the guide that you both needed through those trying times?
GS: I had gotten busy and focused on my own selfish dreams and plans. I had been running a real estate company while working at my church full-time and singing iteratively and had basically put my wife in a very distant second-place. I was an idiot. Narcissistic. And she would have been, I believe, within her rights to say, “I’m done.” That was the exact season when I lost my voice. That was the exact season where the accident happened with the drunk driver.

Then my pastor sent me a text that said, “You know, sometimes God makes us lie down in green pastures and he restores our soul (Psalm 23).” I was like, “Huh, interesting. I’m gonna try to look at this as God saying, “Sykes, sit down…lay down. Something’s gotta change.” Although it was painful, when I really stepped back [I realized] it was my fault. I was the one who was running ragged, trying to prove that I was cool or building wealth through a successful real estate business…[I even] became the worship leader in my church—I was winning on the outside. But where it counted—at home—my wife was alone, she was hurting and actually starving for my attention and affection.

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It wasn’t until we got really honest with our lead pastor and the best counselor we could find that we knew that our marriage was on the edge of disaster. Basically, it was almost over, like, it was hanging on by its last string. I stopped pretending everything was “okay.” I had to put my pride aside and we had to admit to the people we didn’t want to admit to that our marriage [stunk]. We got serious about seeing a doctor about my voice. We both agreed in going to God in desperation saying, “Lord, we just need You…”

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