A Love Story

Hey guys and gals. Do you want to hear a love story? This story is about how I married my beautiful wife, but the love story is not about her. Marrying her was a byproduct of this love story. Let’s start from the beginning....

When I first saw Jess it was a picture on a big screen. I was in a college/young adult ministry at church and they were introducing the new members who had just graduated from high school (this was a long time ago). When I saw her I swear sunshine was beaming from her smile on the screen. She was a knock out. As the years passed we became church acquaintances. We would occasionally have passing conversations and each one would terrify me because she was so beautiful. Her beauty, coupled with the fact that she was so cool, witty, smart, funny, and quirky, led me to the conclusion that I didn’t have a chance. I remember back then I would play the lottery believing that there was a tiny chance that I could win. Yes, I believed I had a better chance at winning the lottery than winning over Jess. She was a fantasy. She was a unicorn, a mythical creature that only existed in a perfect world in my mind.

So the years passed as I went to church with this terrifyingly beautiful woman. One day, I randomly went to lunch with my friend Solomon. He told me about an upcoming mission trip to China and he said I should go. Well it just so happened that another mission team member was trying to convince Jess to go on the same trip. We both ended up joining the mission team late so by default we became accountability partners. Since we joined late together, we also had to fundraise together. We spent a good amount of time together before the mission trip and oh boy did I enjoy that! Right before we got on the plane, Jess came up to me and said we should pray for each other every night so that we would be covered on our mission trip. Something strange happens when you pray for someone on a daily basis. I started to develop this strange spiritual intimacy with her but I also started to increase my intimacy with God.

 In China I was stripped of almost all my material possessions. All I had were the clothes in my backpack and a little bit of money to buy milk tea, but I loved it. All the noise, thoughts, and desires of my life in LA were quieted. I didn't have much but I didn't need much.  I felt like my spiritual eyes were opened and I realized God was all I really needed.

While I was experiencing this new intimacy with God in China, at some point I started developing feelings for Jessica. I mean it really wasn’t hard. She was amazingly beautiful (have I mentioned that enough?), super cool and we were spending a lot of time together. I mean, how could I not!? Apparently it was becoming obvious to the team and the Pastor. I knew I was there to serve God and I didn’t want anything to be a distraction. So through our pastor’s guidance we kept our distance and did not talk about our feelings until we got back from the trip.

When I got back from China I was a new person. I remember reflecting on my life in the van ride from the airport back to church and I realized that I was living an inconsistent life. I was living for myself and if I really believed that God was real and that the Bible was true, then I couldn’t live like that anymore. Truth be told, I didn’t want to live like that anymore. So when I got off the van at the church parking lot I said this prayer “Father, for my whole life I have lived for myself. From now on I am going to live for you." From that day on, I committed myself to doing whatever God asked no matter how counter-intuitive it was.

It’s funny because the first thing God asked was super counter-intuitive. Our pastor told us to wait 6 months before dating. I initially thought that waiting 6 months was absurd. I was flooded by fear provoking thoughts. What if we don't end up together. What if she loses interest in 6 months. What if she finds someone else. Despite all the fear I knew I just had to trust that God was in control of my situation and this process so I just obeyed. Waiting 6 months was incredibly hard and to this day it is the proudest thing I have ever done for God. I knew that something had to drastically change in me during this waiting period and through prayer and discernment I knew that I had to lay down Jessica as an idol in my heart. I knew I had to love God above all other things or else I would be living a lie. Bear in mind I had been pretty lukewarm for years, so pursuing God like this was very new and honestly very weird. But I was desperate so I started to pray, worship, listen to sermons. I went from reading 1 chapter  in the bible a day to 5 chapters a day.  I wrestled with God daily but in my heart, I began to change. Somehow I started to lay down Jess as an idol in my heart. My prayers would reflect the changes in my heart. Initially I bargained for God to allow me to end up with Jess if I loved and served Him. I reasoned with Him saying how we would do so much for Him as a married couple but even as I wrestled with Him about this somehow my heart started letting her go.  My prayers became more focused on Him and less on her. In fact, it came to a point where I felt like living life alone with just God would be great! I actually prayed that prayer twice. "Let's do it Father. Just you and me. I'm going to walk this earth for the rest of my life alone. You are all I need!"  Both times I prayed that prayer I was in my car and both times a sermon came on right away.  One sermon was about how God made woman as a suitable helper for man and the other was how God called all of his creations good but the first thing that he said that wasn't good was that man should not be alone. He then started to give me confirmations about Jess. It's as if somehow He knew I was ready and He knew that in my heart I would never covet her and love her more than Him. He trusted me.  One day, I felt something nudging me to ask her out when our waiting period was up. I wrote down a list of things that I felt needed to happen before we could be together. Incredibly, the whole list came to pass during the 6 months. I had numerous other confirmations as well. Remember I was reading 5 chapters of the Bible a day? Well on the very last day of waiting, December 31, I read the last 5 chapters of Revelation. I could not believe that there were exactly 5 chapters left! I went to a new year service that night at church and when midnight struck I went looking for Jess knowing that God had given me his blessing. I turned a corner and nearly ran into her just like out of some romantic comedy. Now you would think that having the blessing of the God of the universe would give you a boost of confidence but I was still so nervous. I was able to nervously string together a coherent sentence asking her to be my girlfriend. She said yes. One amazing part of that night was walking into the church parking lot after "making it official" and our church community was cheering for us because they were with us during our whole process and knew everything that we went through. That really brought me joy. I knew that in the eyes of my brothers and sisters I had honored God with my whole process of waiting. I am so thankful to God because of this opportunity,  I know I have received a great marital blessing.

This month marks our fifth year of marriage and to this day I could not have asked for a better wife and a happier marriage. I love Jessica with all my heart but I know that my love for her has little to do with the blessing I experience. The blessing is a gift from God that he trusts us with because of all that we have gone through and He could only give it to me because He knew that in my heart I would not put it above Him. In the end I can say that I love The Lord. And there it is guys and gals, my love story.

"I love the LORD, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live"

                                                                                    Psalm 116:1-2