'After my wife became a Christian, I began to see positive changes in her character and values,' he said, noting he observed a marked difference in the way she treated people and cared for others. Little did he know it would be her conversion that would become the catalyst that would change the trajectory of his own life forever. When his wife first began attending church and talking about Jesus, he thought his marriage was over. That is, until his wife-a self-proclaimed agnostic-converted to Christianity. He was well respected in his field and had no need for organized religion. Strobel, the Ivey Leaguer lived his life based solely on proven facts. He was a formally trained writer with a journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Yale. Strobel was an award-winning legal editor at The Chicago Tribune, a position he held for 14 years. If you had asked Strobel in the late '70s if he believed in a loving, all-knowing God, he would have readily denied His existence.

Strobel set his sights on a career in journalism and never looked back. They were civil to each other, but the two men never fully reconciled before his father's death. At the insistence of his mother, the 18-year-old returned home briefly before heading off to college, but he and his dad never discussed the incident. That summer, he worked as a reporter for a local newspaper and lived 50 miles from his childhood home. After that heated conversation, Strobel stormed out of the house, planning never to return.

'He told me he didn't have enough love for me to fill his little finger,' Strobel said. The night before his high school graduation, their difficult relationship exploded. Strobel was an unwelcome surprise for his dad from the beginning: 'I was always trying to achieve things to impress him and earn his love, but I felt like I fell short,' Strobel said. For former atheist Lee Strobel, his father heavily influenced his decision not to believe in God. The choices we make as adults are often colored by the decisions our parents made.

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