…If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” Romans 10:9-11
My last post
was the beginning of a short bio of my life and how God has helped me through
everything. It is also about how people change, how my conception of God has
changed over the years. In fact, it is still changing.
Late
20s: After my divorce, I was very
lonely. I went to church each week, but there were no single there.
After three years, I met a man through my job. He was the best friend of one of
my co-workers. We started dating and I liked him a lot. He was fun, seemed kind and
really liked my daughters. He started going to church with us.
One day, I
asked God if it was okay if I married this man. I knew he had already bought a
ring and was planning on asking me. The Lord spoke to me, which I did not
expect, and quoted a verse that was in the Bible, “What agreement does Satan
have with God?”
So, God was
saying my boyfriend was an unbeliever and would stay that way. I was rebellious
and kept dating him. I was so afraid of being alone again, and I hadn’t yet
learned to trust God. But a few things happened that showed me the man was
indeed evil. One of those things had to do with my oldest daughter. He didn’t
do anything, but he said something about her that was sexual. I broke up with
him immediately.
I told God
then that I would quit looking and hoping for a man. I decided not to date again.
The next day my cousin, Bonnie, called. She asked me to go to a Bible study
with her. I went and enjoyed it very much. Afterwards, we went to have coffee
with two of her friends, two Christian men.
We had a
good chat and I got up to leave. I didn’t think I would ever see those guys
again. But as I was leaving, one of them asked me what I was doing the next
day, a Sunday. I told him my mom and dad had a table at a flea market and I was
going to help them. He asked where it was and I told him. I was clueless that
he wanted to see me.
He came to
the flea market and spent the day with me. Then he asked me to go to a church
songfest with him and I said okay. We started dating and he was a total
gentleman, which I wasn’t used to. We eventually married and are still married
40 years later.
The Lord gave me a Christian husband when I was least expecting one
and when I had given up trying myself! I have since learned that God is like
that. He wants us to rely on him completely and not on ourselves. He waits till
we try all our various ways of making things happen and when we turn to him in
defeat, well, that’s when he works. It is better if we just go to God first, telling him we accept whatever he wants for us; it saves a considerable amount of time.
Just before
I met my husband, a new preacher came to our church and taught us all about
having righteousness by faith alone. After learning this, I was no longer
afraid God would kill me for the least infraction. I had my first inkling that
God might actually loved me.
My new husband, who had only recently become a
Christian and had never gone to church before, kept teaching me this. He had a
strong faith in God, he still does, and I also learned from him about feelings.
The first night I met him I said, “I don’t feel like God loves me.” He said, “Well, it’s a good thing we don’t
rely on our feelings, isn’t it?” I was
stunned at this thought. I think I had always been guided by my feelings. It
still took many years for me to get over doing this, but that night I did
believe what he said. As far as my relationship with God went, I quit relying
on my feelings.
So during
these years, the Lord kept me from marrying the wrong man, in spite of my
rebellion. He gave me a Christian husband who helped me spiritually and I
learned we are saved by God’s grace alone, not by anything we've done.
“For by grace you have
been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so
that no one may boast.”
Ephesians 2:8,9
