Married. Divorced. Remarried. God’s love never gave up on the Muellners. He is now the head of their marriage and family the second time around.
By Naomi Musch, Living Stones News Writer

Scott and Laura Muellner severed their marriage in 1981, but never imagined that God’s refining process would lead them to remarry years later as they learned to submit their lives to His will.

“We should have known we were in trouble on the day of our first wedding,” Scott said. “It was a real rock’em, sock’em reception. The police came with four canine units to break it up.”

Laura and Scott Muellner of Duluth, Minn., have truly found love better the second time around — now that Jesus Christ is the center of their marriage.

The Muellners, from Rice Lake Township near Duluth, Minn., said the band started playing Elvis Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock” as police came in with clubs to break up the brawling. Laura remembers crying, “Don’t hit him! He’s the groom!” An officer replied that he didn’t care if Scott was the king of England.

Arriving at their hotel later that night, Laura’s veil was torn and mascara left tearful tracks down her cheeks. Scott’s white tuxedo was marked by muddy handprints down the back. Yet, the newlyweds had no idea of the long journey that lay ahead of them as God worked to sanctify their lives.

The Muellners said they met as 14-year-olds in junior high school. Laura was saved at 16, and Scott was saved soon after. But, after only three months of trying to live as Christians, the pull of the world drew them away from God. They followed the tendencies of their flesh and partied heavily right up to and after their marriage in 1979 at age 19.

Scott said, “I was wild,” when describing the way he continued to live after marrying Laura. He never really thought his own lifestyle was wrong, having grown up in an environment where it was not discouraged. Not even the birth of his son, George, who was born without ears and only a limited ability to hear, could shake Scott out of his destructive lifestyle.

But Laura had had enough of Scott’s wildness and infidelity. She divorced him in 1981. Yet, even as a single mom, she also continued to party and search vainly for ways to fill the void of her loneliness aside from God. Laura rolled her eyes and said, “I partied to relieve the stress, but the Lord was dealing with me even in the bars.”

When years of surgeries loomed ahead for George, Scott was there. Never wanting the divorce, he made sure that whenever Laura needed anything, he was available. One time, he even bought her some groceries that she called and asked for.

“I told him, ‘Thanks, I’m cooking dinner for my date,’” Laura said. It was one of a number of attempts on her part to get revenge for the hurts she’d endured.

Finally, at age 25, Laura surrendered to the Lord.

“It was on a night when everything that could go wrong did,” she said. “I even got beat up. I said to God, ‘Do me in good and get it over with.’” Instead, by night’s end she had recommitted herself to Him.

Laura began her spiritual growth in earnest, always carrying her Bible with her. Scott laughed as he talked about how it annoyed him.

“Why don’t you leave that in the car?” he would say. But he continued to be available to Laura, often driving her and George to Rochester, Minn., where surgeries eventually gave their son new ears.

“He always called me a Bible thumper,” Laura said with a laugh, “and I just kept thumping along.”

However, she found overtures by Scott offensive. “I was grossed out by Scott and how he was living,” Laura said. She still felt hurt and vengeful.

Meanwhile, Scott started seeing amazing things happening that he later knew could only be credited to God’s hand, and perhaps to little George’s constant prayers for his parents. Seeing all the pain and suffering his little boy had gone through, Scott said he was blown away when the 5-year-old’s first words after one surgery were, “Thank you, Jesus, for my new pink ear!”

Also amazing to Scott was Laura’s steadfast peace through her circumstances. “Why are you so happy?” he kept wondering. “You’re alone with a kid to raise.”

Scott, on the other hand, who’d expected to relish his independence, had lost his job and his house and was living with his grandmother.

It was during one especially difficult period while George underwent major surgery that something happened to stir Scott’s heart. Staying at a motel near the hospital, Scott awoke to find a dove on his windowsill. He pondered it and went to the hospital with a sense that things were going to be OK. For four days, the dove continued to reappear on the windowsill. Then on the fifth day, when the doctors said that George was “out of the woods,” the dove was no longer there.

In 1986, five years after their divorce, Scott realized that Laura “wasn’t going to marry anybody that wasn’t a Christian man,” and he figured, “I could do that.” With the intention of slipping quietly in and out of the back row of church, Scott said he began attending Glad Tidings Church in Duluth where Laura attended. But, on the first visit, he felt as though the pastor was glaring at him and preaching directly to him. Of the next visit, Scott said, “He was picking on me again.” He felt sure that Laura had been talking to the pastor about him, but later realized it to be the Holy Spirit convicting him.

Finally seeing his life clearly, Scott rededicated himself to serving God. His pastor prayed with him, asking that Scott might be set free from the spiritual oppression that had been a stronghold on his family for generations. Scott also began praying that Laura would remarry him.

“He was telling people that we were getting married,” Laura said, explaining how aghast she’d been. But while taking a bubble bath, Laura said she felt that God was speaking to her. “He told me there is strength in unity in the family ... that He would put back the things that the enemy had stolen from our lives. ... He would put back the feelings through His timing. ... He would restore and cause unity to come.” Laura said she cried for 45 minutes and her bubble bath grew cold, but “a weight was lifted.”

Laura said, “(God) showed me that He hates divorce. He said He’d make hard hearts like clay for reshaping. Scott was already there, but I wasn’t. Even though I had rededicated first, I had not given up my pride.”

As a step of faith, she telephoned Scott. “You’re not going to believe this...

...The Lord told us we’re getting back together.”

Scott was not surprised.

They remarried in 1987. “The second wedding was smooth,” Scott laughed. “We had a church reception.”

Three years after their second wedding, they were blessed with a daughter, Nateah.


Together they credit God for giving them spiritual mentors, others whom He put beside them to pray for them and help them grow. They also credit God’s grace for teaching them that He had the power to fill the void in their lives. Laura said that one danger after divorce is a false urgency to fill the void of loneliness by rushing into another relationship.

“You have to learn to fill that void with the Lord and Christian friends and don’t go beyond that,” she said. “Otherwise you’ll bring in more baggage and have a worse situation. The main thing is getting under submission to God.”

Like any couple, they still have occasional disagreements. They see themselves as two rocks that have to keep rubbing together to get smooth. Now if there are disagreements, Scott said, “We don’t point fingers at each other. We just work it out.”