When we were thinking about retiring, we would talk often about where we would live, how much money we might be able to make on the outside, etc. I remember saying that if I could find a job making $30K a year, I'd be thrilled. Even though we liked having fun and buying things, we never aspired to wealth. That was never a goal.
Three years after we retired, in spite of my saying no numerous times to a head-hunter, I found myself working for a high tech start-up company in San Antonio. Five months after I started working for them a fortune 500 company bought us. Unbelievably, when they bought us, they not only kept the people, they gave us shares in their company in exchange for the shares we owned in our company. Our company stock was worth 0, theirs was worth $60 a share! Overnight I went from living from paycheck to paycheck to having plenty!
About a year after moving into our country dream home, Rusty and I were sitting on the porch one evening when I asked the question aloud, "how in the world did we get here?" But the question ran deep in me. As I sat there and reflected on my life, I was absolutely amazed at the path it had taken. Usually God uses very difficult and painful events in people's lives to bring them to Him. It's normally when we get totally stuck or lose hope that we're willing to let Him in. But, in our case, He used very positive events. I don't know why. Maybe because pain, lack of money and broken relationships was the norm in our life and He knew He'd get our attention faster with the opposite. That is pure conjecture on my part. Who can know the mind of God? All I know is that we didn't deserve it.
I started thinking more about God. I set out to find my Bible and thought I'd just start reading through it. As an adult, I had heard many things about God. Some sounded familiar and true from what I recalled as a child, but many things didn't. So I cried out to Him, "God, I want to know who you are and I want to know it from You, not man." I opened up the Bible to Genesis, and started reading. Months went by and I stuck with it, praying often for His guidance. I got to the book of Dueteronomy when it hit me, "this is all about Jesus!". I couldn't wait to get into the new Testament where it talked about Jesus more clearly so I'd alternate reading a book in the old and new Testament. I was sitting on my front porch when I started reading the book of John. I read "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." My jaw dropped as I grasped what God just revealed to me. Jesus was not just a man, or a created mini-god being used by God on earth, he Himself was God. Not God the Father, but God the Son! This was quite a revelation to me. I continued to read, pray and grow in faith.
I wasn't saying anything to Rusty yet about my journey but I longed so much for him to join me in knowing God. On our 20th anniversary I wrote Rusty a letter. In that letter I told him that I loved him but there was something missing in our marriage. I asked him if he would seek God with me. Rusty read that letter and wept. He told me that he'd do anything for me, but he didn't know if he could that.
A few more months went by and I focused on my own learning and praying. I started praying for Rusty and asked God to reveal Himself to Rusty as He had me. I didn't know this for some time, but Rusty had gone into Walmart not long after our anniversary to pick up something and as he walked by the book section, he said he saw only one book on the shelf there and it was "The Bible For Dummies". He told me later that he could not walk past that book without buying it. It jumped off the shelf at him. Funny how God works--yes, even in Walmart :-).
Sometime during his reading of the Bible For Dummies, God softened Rusty's heart. He "forgave" God and asked Him to take over his life again. We were not going to Church and not hanging out with other Christians, but God was teaching us. We knew we needed to get with other believers and serve with them, but we didn't know where to start. God took care of that. He asked us to leave Texas and go to a land where we knew no one. A foreign land to us.....Illinois!
That story is coming up next......
Remember my wish-list from high school? Here I was with a wonderful husband who loved me enough to get past his pain and seek God, a beautiful dream home, and not one but 3 nice cars. There was one thing missing on my list, the number one item---serving God.
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