The Lord saved me in 1979, when I was 33 years old. Two years after that, I was convicted that I needed to quit my job teaching nursing at a local college and stay home with my family. It didn’t take me long to realize that God had given me a desire to teach ladies’ Bible study classes. By that time, we were in a solid Bible-teaching church. One Sunday, a young man named Lou Priolo walked in. He was hired by Howard Eyrich to come to Atlanta and start up the Atlanta Biblical Counseling Center, which Dr. Eyrich had previously begun but had left dormant when he moved away. Although I had heard that Lou was a biblical counselor, I was not interested in counseling. All I wanted to do was teach the Bible verse by verse. Well, one Sunday evening Lou preached on the topic of bitterness, and I was absolutely as they say, “Blown away.” I did not know that the Bible could be so very practical and everything that Lou said rang true to me.
So, when Lou began teaching biblical counseling classes, Sanford and I decided to take them. For me, the reason was that I wanted to be a more practical teacher. As I listened to Lou’s teaching, I would come under conviction. It was like being born again all over again. It was amazing how powerfully God used Lou and His Word to convict all of us in that class.
At the end of the last class, Lou invited me to work part time for him, counseling women at the counseling center. I said a very definite, “No.” I was not interested in being a counselor. I wanted to follow in Kay Arthur’s footsteps.
Well, Lou then went behind my back and talked to my husband, Sanford. Lou told him, “If you tell her to do it, she will.” Sanford agreed with Lou that God had gifted me as a teacher and exhorter, so Sanford came to me and told me that I should give it a try. It turns out that I worked for Lou for eight years, during which time Lou continued to teach me. If I didn’t know what to tell a counselee, I would go to Lou, and he would tell me, and it was always backed up by Scripture. And if he didn’t know what to do, he would call Jay Adams, and Jay knew what to do!
After working with Lou for a few years, Lou came up with the idea that I should write The Excellent Wife book. I knew that God had powerfully used the material to benefit wives from what Lou had taught me. However, I knew how to work chemistry problems better than I knew how to write a book. So, I told him, “No.” Well, you can guess what he did. He went behind my back to Sanford and told him, “If you tell her to do it, she will.” And with a lot of help from others, especially our pastor at the time, Ed Sherwood, I got to work.
When I heard that Lou was home ill, I texted him and asked what was wrong. He answered me and told me what the doctors thought. So, I wrote Lou and Kim a note, and one of the things I wanted him to know was that if it weren’t for him, there would not have been The Excellent Wife book. Lou’s fingerprint is all over it. A couple of weeks later, I was reading in the book of Psalms, and something that David said about himself I thought also applied to Lou, too. So, I sent Lou a text telling him that what David said about himself also applied to Lou. It reads, “I delight to do your will, O my God; Your law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:8).
Lou texted me back, sending me a smiley face emoji with sunglasses on.
In a very short few days, Lou was gone to be with his beloved Savior. His faith had become a sight.
Only God knows the extent to which Lou’s life touched so many people. It is wonderful to think about God’s providence in all those lives, including mine! Lou’s memorial service was greatly honoring to God and how He had used Lou in so many lives, not just in America, but also in the biblical counseling movement throughout the world. Lou leaves behind his wife, Kim, and two daughters, Sophia and Gabriella. Please continue to pray for them. Lou would really appreciate it, as he loved them so much.
