Epiphanies come to some people in a pew. Denise Jackson found two of her defining moments behind the wheel of a truck.

One morning in early 1998, the wife of country music star Alan Jackson dropped her children off at school and headed home to Sweetbriar, the couple's 140-acre estate outside Nashville. She gripped the wheel, exhausted from the ache she'd felt since Alan moved out three months earlier.

She remembered the worst moment, right after he'd left. The country music superstar had come to pick up their three daughters for several days at their lake house, where he had moved after their separation. After gathering the children's things, she watched out the window as her daughters climbed into Alan's tour bus and drove off, her whole world rolling away. She sat down and wept.

As Denise drove now she prayed, but abandoned the desperate prayers that asked God to "bring Alan back." Instead, she said aloud: "I can't do this anymore. I give up. I'm trusting that you're going to take care of me."

That moment of surrender, she writes in her new memoir It's All About Him, launched Denise on a path that would change her.

"Losing Alan was the greatest shattering I could have ever experienced," she said in a soft drawl during an interview at the International Christian Retail Show in Atlanta. "But looking back, I really can say honestly that it was also my greatest blessing."

Theirs was a teenage love story that started in the small town of Newnan, Ga., 40 miles outside Atlanta. One summer night in 1976 she met him at Dairy Queen, when he walked up, gave her a sly look and flipped a penny down her shirt. She was 16, he was 18.

He exuded confidence, liked to renovate cars, sing and play guitar. She radiated the golden-girl persona: high school cheerleading captain, homecoming queen, tennis champ, straight A's. But they also both were fueled by insecurities. When they married in 1979, she was only 19.

Denise knew Alan's favorite color, book and movie and was comfortable riding on his strength. But she followed for so long that she got lost in the process - especially when the fame came. In the fall of 1989 Alan debuted his first single, Blue Blooded Woman. Then Here in the Real World hit No. 1 by spring. Within months the new artist became a country sensation.

They started a family. As his star rose, the money poured in and they bought things like diamonds, a full-length mink coat, dozens of cars, boats, planes, fully staffed vacation homes. But the fame magnified Denise's insecurities and dependence on Alan. When he told Denise he was moving out, he said he was unhappy. It was a conversation they'd had before, when Alan would say things like, "Maybe we married too young. Maybe we weren't meant for each other."

"(The separation) was when I realized it doesn't matter that I have all this stuff, because this stuff doesn't mend a broken heart and this stuff doesn't make me feel any better about the betrayal I feel," she said. "All that matters is your family and your faith."

Her search for a restored marriage became a search for God. "The Bible went from being a dusty history book to really being a passionate love letter," she said.

"I grew up a Christian and grew up in the church, but to know about him is very different from having a personal, intimate, passionate love relationship."

She says that relationship transformed her and saved their marriage. Ultimately, Denise said the greatest blow to the marriage hadn't been her codependency, but Alan's infidelity - and he'd covered it up. He later confessed and she eventually forgave. Then came one date, then another. Counseling. Forgiveness. And time.

"No human being was ever designed to be your all in all," she said.

Alan subsequently wrote and recorded a song by the same title as the memoir, It's All About Him, that's included in the book along with the foreword he wrote.

In finding her faith, Denise also found something else, someone she hadn't seen in a long time - herself.

One day while they were still separated, Denise went to the Ford dealer where Alan had always bought their trucks. She picked out an Expedition, bought it, then slid behind the wheel and aimed it toward home. The small moment was a watershed.

"For once in my married life I had made a decision without Alan, not thinking, 'OK, what is he going to think about this?' " Denise recalled.

Driving home in her new blue SUV, she realized something she didn't know she'd forgotten.

Blue was her favorite color.

Still selling

Books on atheism and anti-religion are hot now. But the International Christian Retail Show, held during July in Atlanta, showed there's still a large market for Christian books, music and gifts.

• Show attendance: More than 9,000

• Sales: $4.63 billion for all Christian products in 2006; sales of religious books in 2006 rose 5.6 percent

• Market share: Nearly 12 percent of Americans spend more than $50 a month on religious products; 11 percent spend $25-$29.

The following books are expected to be big sellers this fall:

• Quiet Strength by Super Bowl-winning coach Tony Dungy

• 3:16 - the Numbers of Hope by best-selling author Max Lucado

• The Case for the Real Jesus by atheist- turned-Christian Lee Strobel (September)

• Just Beyond the Clouds by best-selling novelist Karen Kingsbury (September)

The book

• It's All About Him: Finding the Love of My Life by Denise Jackson; Thomas Nelson, $24.99, 239 pages (includes two-song CD by Alan Jackson)Sources: Cba, The Colorado Springs-Based Trade Association For The Christian Retail Channel; Book Industry Study Group Hot Releases

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