Praise the Lord, Oh My Soul
A few years ago a young couple came to us. They had two young children, but the couple had separated. The wife was a believer; the husband was not. They got married young after discovering that she was pregnant..
They came to my husband and me to do Intimate Encounters. Though the husband (we will call him Eric) was not a believer, he agreed that he could accept that the biblical principles in Intimate Encounters were “moral”. He told us that if we said all they needed to do was pray more, he was out the door! We told him we wouldn’t leave God out of this, but we would just do the study with them and not press it.
We met for many weeks. We saw them get back together. We heard their story and their pain. We watched God move in them though never pushing God on them.
Move to present day: A few years have passed, and Eric has accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord! My husband and I went to his baptism! We cried as we heard his testimony and watched him be baptized! His wife (we will call her Katie) cried as she sang “It Is Well With My Soul” before his baptism. Read his testimony! (I changed names for privacy)
Several weeks ago during my first conversations with Jeff, and one of many with Steve, I revealed to them one of the biggest faults I found with Christianity was that I saw no “patterns” in it. They could not follow that statement, though well thought out, it was not articulated very well. Only now, after having the bigger picture revealed to me, I find that I can better expound on that statement. I saw no evidence of God’s will. I could not see the picture he was painting for me. Where believers saw God’s divine plan working towards an eternal purpose, I saw random effects birthed by random causes. Where Christians saw God’s order, I saw only chaos. Where they saw God’s will, I saw everyday life leading towards nothingness. I saw little, to no, eternal purpose. If there was a god, I saw no evidence that He cared at all for any of us, let alone me personally. Only recently has God lifted the veil that covered my eyes, I sit and watch my life now, like a movie, replay through my mind. All the random happenings, pointless tragedies, and chaos in my life were scrambled in my memories like a puzzle not yet assembled. Christ began to piece together my life, to slowly reveal to me the greater picture : His will, the order, the “pattern’.
My mother left home when I was a small child and I have no memory of her. In moments of vulnerability my father would speak of her to me. He only ever spoke of her fondly and with a gentle heart, and often it was that he spoke of her. Never was the topic of my mother approached by me because I cared nothing for the woman that cared nothing for me. My father would never hide the fact that he still loved her, through unfaithfulness and abandonment he loved her still and he would make no apology. I, equally, would make no apology for the hate I bore for her. I hated a woman I did not know and I hated a love I did not understand, but he loved her still.
In 2003 a tragic car accident took my father from me. As I stared into his eyes, once beaming with life, passion, and hope, I found staring back at me nothing. In that moment I knew my father was gone. Shared in that moment, gone away was my passion and hope as well. At 14 years old, never knowing a mother’s love, and now losing the only person who ever loved me, slowly, my heart began to harden. I have spent the past 14 years grieving the death of my father, only recently have I found solace in knowing that one day we will see each other again, not as father and son but as brothers in Christ.
I have no doubt that up until the day my father died, if my mother would have returned, my father would have accepted her again into his loving arms. Only now have I realized, rather I have had revealed to me, that God instilled in my father’s heart an unconditional love for my mother. It mattered very little to my father that she rejected him and his love, he loved her still. Fourteen years after my father’s death God would use him as a picture of Christ’s unconditional love for me. I hated a God I did not know and I hated a love I did not understand but he loved me still.
After seven years of stumbling through darkness I caught a glimpse of light, in my soon to be bride, Katie. Even our marriage I would use as a defense for atheism. How could a woman raised in a Godly home, raised by Godly parents, herself being a professed Christian, choose to love a man who was a professed atheist? The answer, to me, was either, God does not exist therefore God’s will does not exist. Or, if there exists a God, he seems to care very little about the things we choose to do. Throughout our marriage Katie’s love of Christ and her trust in God has been unwavering. I realize now it could not have been easy for her to be married to me, and I often wondered what kept her love for me from faltering. If not for her faith in Christ and her trust in God I find it hard to imagine we would still be married today. Katie has spent seven years in submission to a man who was not worthy to lead her. Her complete trust in me, and more importantly her trust in God, will always be a testament to me. From her I learned to be in submission and have complete trust in God even when I can’t see where I am being led. For without a word I was won by the behavior of my wife.
Katie, never again will I be a man unworthy of leading you!
When our son Tyler was four years old, I told him Santa wasn’t real. Without question or debate Tyler’s belief in Santa was no more. To him his father was always right. and his father would never mislead him. In my son’s eyes I have all the answers, and I know everything about everything. Which is why it was quite shocking to me to hear my son tell me I was absolutely wrong when it came to issues of Christ. In my home a hard line was drawn, and I alone stood on the side of unbelief. My well thought out and articulated plans fell on deaf ears. It wasn’t that Tyler was unwilling to listen, but that he did listen but simply could not hear it. On the topic of God his father was ABSOLUTELY wrong. In his soul he knew Jesus was real, not BECAUSE he believed in Him, but BECAUSE Jesus is real he MUST believe in him. The person my son trusted most in this entire world, the man who had all the answers, who knew everything, told him, to his face, the God you believe in DOES NOT EXIST, and Tyler never batted an eye. Tyler, I was very, very wrong, and God is very, very real.
My rejection of Christ was rooted in indifference, my indifference was founded in an unwillingness to hear any evidence. After several weeks of studying and learning, debating and questioning, I approached the Lord and the Word with an earnest heart, a willingness to listen, versus the previous unwillingness to hear. During this process I had come to find evidences of God’s will and a knowledge that throughout and beyond the realm of time and man, God has been in complete control. Throughout my time and my life God has been in complete control. He showed me order where I had seen only chaos. He showed me a story, where before I had only scattered scenes. He pieced together my broken heart and my broken memories to reveal a picture of his love. He was with me when my mother rejected my father’s love and abandoned us. He was with me when my father breathed his last breath. He was there when Katie and I said our vows. He has been here as I have raised my children. My belief in Christ is rooted in faith, my faith is grounded in evidence.
Finally, he showed me the Cross. How MY sins put His Son there. Though it was only a moment, shame burned through my soul with an intensity that would last an eternity. If I would ask for forgiveness and repent, by His Son would my debt be paid and my soul would be redeemed and I would rise with Him into the Kingdom of Heaven. In submission to a God I couldn’t fully know and with the childlike faith in a love I couldn’t fully understand I repented my sins and asked for forgiveness. I accepted his love and I accepted His sacrifice. As quickly as that flame of shame had been ignited in my soul it had been extinguished. The weight of a lifetime of sin, along with the weight of a lifetime of pain and hate and abandonment, was nailed to that Cross. Jesus suffered it all, in its entirety, to the end, so I would no longer have to. What a glorious thought, my sin, not in part but the whole, was nailed to the Cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, Oh My Soul.” Amen.
Eric’s Father-in-Law baptized him and as soon as he was done Eric turned around and baptized his son Tyler! What remarkable healing in this family!
I personally have not seen Eric for a while, my husband works with him, but before Eric’s baptism we talked with him a little bit and I could see Jesus just shining from his face. I could see the change in him before he even spoke a word!
I absolutely love how God has a hand in everything! The change in Eric and Katie’s life, can only be God! I am so thankful and humbled that God chooses to use others in his children’s lives. He heals and restores in ways we can not even imagine! Praise be to God!!! He gets all the Glory! Amen!