The Covenant

Next week I'm going to catch you up on Shafferland and present day, but I'm excited to wrap up this week of sharing about some ways God spoke to me a few years back.

***

When I finished praying that prayer of relinquishing and trust, the sun came out.  It was the first time in days I’d seen the sun.  The gloom of rain had lasted quite long enough for my tastes and I welcomed the rays that shone through the stained glass windows. 

My gaze dropped to the floor as I remembered the “slow and stop” message from the first week in the prayer chapel.  Much to my surprise, this week the sun was so radiant that every color from the window melted into a pool on the green slate floor.  Red, yellow, orange, blue, purple, green – my own rainbow covered the floor next to my pew.

Immediately I remembered my best friend’s wedding almost four years earlier.  She lived about an hour north of me and I was the maid of honor in her wedding.  The last couple of weeks before her wedding were filled with overtime at work, crash dieting for the spaghetti strap dress, short nights, and long days.  Three days before her wedding I was so sick that I just hoped I could even be at the wedding. 

Not being a big fan of driving – especially on interstates – I dreaded the drive north to her apartment with all my wedding gear crammed in the back of my tiny Neon.  As I left work the Thursday night before her wedding day and made my way to the interstate entrance ramp, the skies poured and darkness threatened to fall early.  I clutched the steering wheel at ten and two and prayed my way down the unfamiliar road as semis zoomed past my compact car. 

The rain slowed, then stopped, and directly in front of me appeared a beautiful huge rainbow.  I pried one hand from the wheel long enough to feel around in my purse in the passenger seat and pull out the disposable camera I’d brought to document the weekend.  I perched it on top of the steering wheel and snapped, hoping I’d caught the rainbow. 

When I made my scrapbook of her wedding, I included the picture along with that story and this verse from Genesis 9:17 – “This is a sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on earth.”  Yes, my rainbow from God.  That weekend it had been God’s promise to me that the weekend would be okay.  I wasn’t alone in my car, I would make it to my destination, the wedding would be beautiful, and I would be well enough to be the maid of honor Lynnette needed. 

And as I sat in the chapel that day, remembering God’s original covenant of love with Noah and His covenant of love with me three and half years earlier, I sensed another covenant hiding in the pool of color on the floor.  God would make good on His promise of being trustworthy.  I could trust Him to make me into a blessing of a wife.  I could trust Him to bring me my partner.  I could trust Him to write my love story.  As He had been faithful to those who came before me….as He had been faithful to me in the earlier days of my life…He would continue to prove faithful.

How thankful I was that God led me to Elizabeth’s book to teach me how to become that wife for my husband.  How thankful I was for a ruby ring to remind me daily of that commitment to become all I could be for him.  How thankful I was for Jeff’s time in writing an e-mail to a sister-in-law he could have lashed out at in frustration.  How thankful I was that I’d been prompted to keep his words on that index card for such a time as this.  How thankful I was for Eric and Leslie Ludy and their books to light the way for a girl who didn’t quite know how to allow God to work in her love life.  And how thankful I was for a rainy drive on an interstate three years earlier that gave me an encounter with God that returned that day to bless me once again.

My pastor's words were so true.  When we commit Scripture to memory, God will pull it out at just the right time.  And He doesn’t stop with Scripture.  Every experience.  Every word comes back at the right moment and brings His promise and His hope. 

Relinquishing the Pen

Thanks, my dear friends, for reading along with my story-from-yore this week. It's been a busy week in my head and heart, and I've just needed some time to catch up again. Thanks for hanging with me while I share from the past, and I hope that no matter where you are in your story, you're finding something God can use to get through to you about your situation!

This part is to follow up yesterday's story, when God asked me to give Him the pen to write my love story.

***

I knew exactly what God meant.  A few years before, I’d read Ericand Leslie Ludy’s book When God Writes Your Love Story.  In my typical fashion, I’d curled up with the book, a pen, and an old bulletin to make a straight edge under the sentences that needed underlined.  I’d studied the book carefully and felt God’s first tug on my heart to follow Eric and Leslie’s bidding to hand over the pen of my love story to the capable hand of Almighty God. 

In response, I’d looked at the pen, considered the pen, toyed with the idea of handing over the pen, and ultimately kept the pen.  But on this day, as I whispered those words of trust to the Lord – I felt the tugging again.  Give Me the pen.

To show you just how God works all these things together in His time, I’ll sneak ahead to the next day…after my time in the prayer chapel…to show you where this moment and that prompting of the Spirit led me.  After Eric and Leslie wrote When God Writes Your Love Story, a book about how to let God be the author of romance, they also wrote their own love story in a book called When Dreams Come True.  I had owned the book for a couple of years, but I’d never read it.  But this exchange with God drew my interest to that book, and the next night, I picked it up.  And as I read, I wrote:

I read these words in When Dreams Come True tonight.  They gave me hope.  On the heels of last night…of all of yesterday, actually.  In this chapter, Eric talks about the personification of his wedding day:  “I only spent a day with him – though he had been waiting since before I was born to throw me this great fiesta.  God created Mr. Vale for one purpose.  It was his life’s work to decorate the stage for the most tender and precious of romances.  He didn’t just do his job well, he was the best I’ve ever seen.”  God, I want my wedding day to be such a celebration.  I want it to be a day of celebration for You as much as for me.  I want to feel as though You’ve waited all my life to throw me a wedding day.

He goes on:  “God has given you something today that all the money in the world couldn’t buy…Never forget what God has done for you.”  Lord, don’t let me forget this wilderness once I reach my Promised Land.

“We often stop believing in the Heaven at the end of the race, and so strangely dare only to believe in the hell in which we’re struggling through today.”  I know those days.  I do.  Aren’t these pages testimony to that?

“Let this story offer you hope.  Let it lift your chin and put a sparkle of vision back in your eyes and dreams of heaven back in your heart.  Let God remind you how big He really is as – on a day when rice filled my hair and joy filled my heart – He reminded me…True love is worth all the pain that patience and perseverance can inflict.”  Please, God.  Make it so.

And though I didn’t know those words from Eric’s heart were in my near future, similar prayers formed in my mind as I sat on the wooden pew in the tiny chapel.  God wanted the pen to my life and I’d withheld it thus far.  It had worked for Eric and Leslie to release their hold on their own lives.  God had done a good job of bringing them together and opening up a ministry for them.  Why would I not trust Him to do the same for me?  Clearly, nothing I had tried seemed to work. 

The request from God hung in the air:  Give Me the pen. 

Okay, God.  You write the story.

***

And from the other side, I have to say, He wrote a MAGNIFICENT story. One far better than I could have dreamed that day in that pew. So even though on THIS day...I'm not waiting for love, I'm still waiting for God to write other parts of our story, and I'm reminded again to hand HIM the pen and let HIM do the writing. 

The Index Card

I was sick on the couch all day yesterday {with what I'm demanding to be a 24 hour bug that will leave me feeling ALL BETTER today}. Since that makes for very poor blogging material, I'm going to continue with my story today. Again, if you're one of my single friends, please oh please read the words of wisdom from my brother-in-law as I quoted them below!

***

I stopped twisting the ring and glanced beside me in the pew.  There sat the index card.  Blue and green permanent marker displayed my neatest handwriting and four dots in the four corners of the card bore witness to four years of sticky tack that had held the card to my bathroom wall.

I’d stumbled across it the night before when I used the upstairs bathroom.  The one that had been mine years before when I’d shared my house with a roommate.  Since she moved out, I’d taken over the larger bathroom and the card had gone unread on a daily basis for those most recent months.  But when I saw it the day before, God prompted me to take it down from the wall and to the chapel to pray over it the next day.  So I’d done just that.

The card read:

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God”  (Philippians 4:6).

“A poor relationship is not better than no relationship.  It will be scary and lonely to eliminate a long-standing relationship like this.  But work through to the other side of the loneliness and see what’s there.  If you want more out of a relationship, hold out for it…Tell God, ‘I’ll trust you with bringing me my partner.’”

Those last words were penned by my brother-in-law in an email over four years earlier.  I’d written to him in desperation as I tried – in vain, again – to relinquish my grip on a relationship that I just couldn’t shake.  I’d clung to these words and transferred them to the index card so I could see them every day as I got ready for work – and ready for bed.  I thought perhaps just reading them over and over would remind me of their truth. 

And I did read them – over and over.  And still I returned to the relationship – over and over.  Then I just didn’t see the card anymore.  But it still hung on the wall.  And that night, God led me back to it.  God reminded me of another time and place when I’d sought to become the woman He designed me to be.  A time and place when I had ached to be free to move on to a forever relationship – but had not been willing to really put the effort behind it.  A time and place when I hoped reading words on a card would magically transform my spirit. 

Sitting there in the chapel, I held the card in my hands and studied Jeff’s words closely.  “A poor relationship is not better than no relationship.”  So true.  What was the point in having someone by your side if he didn’t really want to be there forever?  “It will be scary and lonely to eliminate a long-standing relationship like this.”  A sure promise.  Nothing had been more painful than letting go – consciously – of this love I’d had and shared.  The uncertainty of the future without him was far more difficult than the pain of being alone.  If I didn’t marry him…would I marry anyone?  On and on I’d agonized. 

And then the hope.  “But work through to the other side of the loneliness and see what’s there.”  That had been the part I’d avoided in the four years since I read the words.  The work seemed too hard and the other side too far to even glimpse.  Until recently.  And with diligent work, I’d plodded, day by day, through a “detox” program to eliminate this unhealthy relationship from my life.  There had been tears and anger and worry and fear – but I found Jeff’s words to hold truth.  Working through to the other side had helped me see that there was another side.  “If you want more out of a relationship, hold out for it…”  I’d been scared to hold out for more because I wasn’t sure such a thing existed.  But I was beginning to see that it just might.

Finally, the frightening end.  “Tell God, ‘I’ll trust you with bringing me my partner.’  There is a committal guy out there.”  Gulp.  I sat in the chapel, clutching the card and staring at that last sentence.  I sat.  I prayed.  With thanksgiving, I presented my petition to God.  I verbalized that I trusted Him to bring me my partner.  Though it seemed big – huge – I committed it to the Lord.  I said it again.  I’ll trust You with bringing me my partner.

I waited.  And then God spoke:  Give me the pen.

Worth Far More Than Rubies

A few weeks ago, I began sharing with you {randomly} about some encounters I had with God in the IWU Prayer Chapel, during a set-apart time of prayer and fasting. This particular section I want to share with you gives me goose bumps to read now - because I'm reading from the other side. If you're one of my single-and-waiting friends...I ache for you to find comfort in these words. If you're one of my married friends...I ache for you to find thankfulness for answered prayers, just as I'm finding today.

***

One of my childhood pastors, Fred Littlefield, once preached about the importance of Scripture memorization.  He said that when we put Scripture into our memory bank, God will pull it out at just the right time.  I’ve learned the truth in that statement – and beyond it, I’ve also learned that in the spirit of Romans 8:28, God will also work to bring together truths we’ve learned from various sources – if we’re willing to take the time to learn them.

As I sat in the prayer chapel for week number three, God reminded me of that lesson as He brought to my mind sections of truths I’d learned here and there over the past weeks – months.  Amazing how something I had read or heard or experienced at so many different stopping points could suddenly all lump together and make sense. 

It began with my ring.  I sat in the chapel waiting on my first lesson of the day, and in my fidgety nature, I began twisting the ruby ring on my left hand’s ring finger.  Not until later that night, after consulting my journal, did I realize that this particular day was my 100^th day of wearing that ring.  God knows how dearly I love anniversaries like that, and I appreciated His tying in a lesson about the ring on such an important day for it.

A few months earlier, I began studying Elizabeth George’s book Beautiful in God’s Eyes.  I mentor a friend from church and together, Olivia and I had been delving into Elizabeth’s findings on the Proverbs 31 Woman.  I wanted Olivia to know how to better grow into such a woman, as she was already doing, and I wanted to make sure I got on track in being that woman, as I wanted to gift my husband with a blessing, not a hindrance of a wife. 

The second chapter of the book focused on Proverbs 31:10, which says, “Her worth is far above rubies.”  Elizabeth said “The rich red ruby is truly a unique gem, and because of their rarity, large rubies even surpass diamonds of equal weight in value!”  I had no idea!  I always credited diamonds with being the gem of choice in value.  That day, as I read that chapter, I vowed to find a ruby ring and wear it on my ring finger until the day my husband proposes to me – as a reminder to me that I have value in God’s eyes – and as a reminder to work hard every day to become a woman of even greater value for my someday husband.

Since I read that chapter in January, one of my friends suggested that I watch for Valentine's Day jewelry sales in the weeks to come, and I might find a ruby ring in my price range (which wasn’t very high).  I thought it was an excellent and easy idea, so I kept my eyes on the newspaper flyers…and came up empty.  Apparently at least in my area of the world, ruby rings never go on sale.  Necklaces, earrings, bracelets – all of that gets the markdown, but not rings. At least not ones that would look good on me. 

And then – two weeks before Valentines Day – one jewelry store near my house ran an advertisement for a ruby ring – small and classy – right at the top of my price range.  There would be an extra charge for sizing if necessary.  I took one look at my chubby ring finger and rolled my eyes.  I wondered what “extra charge” translated to in dollars.  Nevertheless, I made my way to the store with coupon in hand, on the appointed day of the sale and asked to see the ring.  The lady pulled it out of the case and slipped it on my finger.  A perfect fit.  I wrote the check and walked out with my new ring proudly displayed.

Later that day, God pointed out to me that He can ordain even ruby rings.  A perfect fit of the perfectly priced ring.  And then He pointed out that my ring is comprised of three hearts – two on their sides pointing into the large one in the middle.  Just as your marriage will be two hearts in love with God at the center.

One hundred days later, I sat in the chapel, twisting the ring on my finger, remembering a day in February when I made a vow to become worth more than the rarest gem so I could bless my husband. 

There will be a husband. 

What?

There is a husband in your future and I will be the center of your marriage. 

What a comfort God brought in those words.  These dates – where I came to pray and learn and seek and be filled – were serving a purpose.  I couldn’t see what just yet, but I had such a peace that a purpose existed. 

Elizabeth’s book from months before came back to me as I sat there – and how thankful I was that God was molding me into a beautiful woman for….the love of a lifetime that I could only dream about.

***

And now, from the other side, I can tell you that the ring I wrote about that day was actually not the one I had on my finger when Ryan proposed. I discovered while on vacation several months later that the center ruby had fallen out - and I had no idea where it happened. In time, I found a replacement ring - with a story that was as beautiful as finding the first one. 

And Olivia? The one I studied with? I had the privilege of praying over her and her husband the night before their wedding, and I stood beside her the next day as a bridesmaid. I watched with no reservation whatsoever as she joined her heart with God's match for her.

And as for the ring itself...I pulled it off my ring finger on October 4, 2012, when Ryan knelt before me in Studio A, in front of a live mic, with all my co-workers watching and thousands more listening. And God's promise rang true. There was a husband for me after all, and He IS the center of our marriage.