Did you hear the exciting news?
Producer Ryan (from the morning show) got engaged!!!
It would be really cool if you sent him a quick congrats at ryan@thefish959.com.
His fiancee is a beautiful, nice gal named Melissa.
Yay!
Now we can start asking them when the date is. And as soon as they're married, we can start asking when they will be having kids. ;-)
Aaaahhhh....when you hear about someone starting out on this journey, doesn't it make you reminisce about your own story?
Part of the reason that I came back to the Lord a few years ago was because of my husband. I walked away from God as a teenager, not even really sure that He existed. By the time I hit my 20s, I was making bad choices left and right and looking for something that would take away my pain.
My (future) hubby and I had been dating a few years when I realized that I wanted to clean myself up and be a person that was worthy of him. The short version is that I started going to church on my own, and rededicated my life to God. With His help, I was able to to get myself under control, but it was not an overnight process.
(future) Hubby and I got engaged shortly after that, and I continued going to church. I remember reading The Purpose-Driven Life on our honeymoon, and really feeling like a new life was beginning. Suddenly, all of the bad things that had happened to me made sense, and I realized that God was going to work everything out.
And they all lived happily ever after, right?
(Insert the sound of the needle scratching off the record here.)
When I shared this with my hubby, he announced that faith was a private thing, and that he didn't like the churches I was checking out as I was trying to find a church home close to our new house. He came with me to one once, and ended up walking out before worship was over. He walked home rather than stay there with me. He wouldn't pray with me or read the Bible, and he didn't want to hear about what I was learning. He thought religious people were hypocrites...end of story. There were many references to televangelists who took money from older folks.
I was shocked, because I thought that since he had seen this former hard-partying, crazy woman become a happy, trustworthy, clean person he would automatically want some of whatever it was that I had found. Not so much. And I am sharing this story with you in case you are married to an unbelieving spouse. I know what this is like, and I know how alone you must feel a lot of the time.
So what did I do?
I started quoting from Revelation (seriously) frequently and angrily telling him about what would happen if he didn't repent...NOW.
I started giving him a hard time about not coming to church.
I even YELLED at him that there was a God who loved him, and why didn't he see that he was a sinner???!!!
We started to grow apart, just months after our wedding.
I had my agenda, and forget about whatever he was telling me that he needed.
I truly thought I was doing the right thing, and as a new Christian, I think all I really understood were rules. There seemed to be safety in rules: This is good, and this over here is bad.
I remember telling a wise pastor friend how I was going to try and "trick" him into coming to church to hear a message on Salvation, and that maybe after he heard it presented in this certain way he would turn from his evil ways and lead me in Bible study.
She looked at me, and very kindly, suggested that maybe I should stay home with him instead and make him some pancakes. She basically said, "He's heard this message many times. What he needs now is to see it lived out."
At that moment, I felt so ashamed. I had literally been screaming Scripture at him, fighting him at every turn, and threatening to leave if he "didn't see things my way."
It hit me that it is a lot easier to talk about my faith than to live it out.
So I stayed home. And made some terrible, dry, chocolate chip pancakes. And we took a bike ride. And I stopped quoting Scripture about the lake of fire.
And you know what?
When I started to try to actually live out my faith, and to truly let God transform my heart, I actually became a kinder person.
When I started listening to my husband, and yes, submitting to him (even when I didn't always agree), our marriage became stronger.
We are still not doing Bible study together, or even praying together, but I am trusting God that that will happen one day.
And guess what? He is coming to church with Dallas and me this Sunday. :-)
