Start Marriage Right
Redemption Story
I’m surrounded by His redemption story this week. I see it vividly in my own life and in living color in the Bible study I am doing right now.
His redemption brings JOY unspeakable, jaw-dropping amazement, and tear-filled eyes.
His redemption is meant for all, should we choose to take it. And I have chosen. I will never look back.
This week I will post my second entry on the Start Marriage Right website. It’s a risky entry as it is deeply personal. But my husband and I knew that when God walked us down the aisle our story would need to be shared. We know this is what God would have.
Our story is one of redemption with many incredible facets, some easy and some hard. And if there is anything we’ve learned over the years as He has written our redemption story and continues to do so, it is that sometimes it is pretty but most often it is the ugly turned into beauty that speaks loudest to the greatness, love and holiness of our Father.
And why would our story be any different than the epic accounts we read of in the Bible? Many of which I could recount here but one in particular that is of utmost timeliness and importance right now.
I’m studying the book of James right now and have one of the {I think} very best Bible study teachers ever. I know little about the man named James, at least until I started this study. And after just two sessions and one week of homework I am amazed. Utterly amazed.
James, the half-brother of Jesus, who once dismissed his brother as Messiah, became one of the pillars of the early church. James, who once mocked the Christ, played a significant role in establishing Christ’s church.
Redemption.
It’s ugly when families dispute and it is really ugly when it is in public for all to see. But God’s redemption plan takes the ugly of the ugliest and makes it stunningly beautiful.
Redemption.
I wonder, as we are surrounded by redemption stories in the Bible and in our own lives, why do we struggle to believe that His redemption is for us too? God is not a respecter of persons, which means He is not partial to anyone. Which means, redemption is for me and for you.
Will we keep our hearts and eyes open to see?
Read MoreA New Blogging Endeaver
What do you write on a blog that’s titled Start Marriage Right when you’ve only been married for a hot second? This is what I’ve been asking myself as I embark into this new endeavor. Starting this week I’ll begin contributing on a monthly basis to the blog on www.StartMarriageRight.com and perhaps more as time goes on.
If there is anything I learned in the journey leading to marriage it was probably more what NOT to do than what to do. In fact, when the prospect of writing in this space came my way my husband and I joked that we could probably fill the pages of a book with what not to do, but a book about what to do might be quite a different story.
You see we met as young, naïve and faithless 22-year olds. I had just graduated from college and he had one more semester left. But when we met we didn’t even know that much about each other, we just each thought the other was quite attractive. It was Memorial Day weekend and he had come down to Indianapolis to visit a mutual friend of ours and we were ready to party with whoever walked in the door.
At the end of the weekend he left to go back to Chicago. I left for my parents’ home in Connecticut. Neither of us thought we would see the other again.
By the time I was 22 I had known the Lord briefly in high school but after a year at Indiana University I began to subscribe to the universal god theory. My husband had been raised in a religious home but had never explored his faith as his own and pretty much knew the routine without a relationship.
In the 10 years that followed our first encounter I moved to the Windy City, we began dating and after two and a half years we broke-up. God ravaged our hearts while apart and we got back together and got engaged. At the time, that was not God’s plan. We broke off our engagement, experienced the worst heartbreak we had ever known and swore off the other. But God had a plan and even we could not thwart it. As only the One true redeeming God could do, He restored what we destroyed, redeemed a boy and a girl and He brought us back together in His perfect timing to make a covenant with Him and each other for the rest of our lives.
We had no idea when we met that weekend in May 2002 that our God would take us on the most incredible journey that would culminate with welcoming our first child into the world 10 years later to the month.
So, it is with the knowledge of my redeeming God, who He is and what He has done for us that I write in this new space. And by His grace I pray He can use what I’ve learned to help others begin their marriage well. I’m just an imperfect girl whose prayer is that the God of all grace and redemption can use the little bit I’ve learned of Him and our beautifully flawed story to bring glory to His name and prevent others from having to “learn the hard way.”
His word says that He will use the foolish things of this world to shame the wise {1 Corinthians 1:27} and so I trust that He can use this broken yet redeemed vessel.
I hope you’ll stop by Start Marriage Right sometime and find something helpful in your journey.
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