The Love Story that Created a Love Story
Truthfully, if it wasn’t for this couple’s love story, I may not have turned my life around and started really living for The Lord.
It started with a move from LA to Arizona. Then my sister and our mom moved there, and our mom got a switchboard job at the county courthouse. She met Steve, introduced him to Candie, and the rest is 43+ years of history.
But within that history is the wedding where I got to be the matron of honor because I’m the big sister. 😁 And then, a stubborn ultimatum about someone refusing to attend their special day unless I agreed to visit a church service turned into my ultimate turnaround moment.
It doesn’t matter that I didn’t want to be there. It doesn’t matter that I once walked by that very church with a huff, heard the music from inside, and stated, “You won’t catch me dead in a Pentecostal church!” And it doesn’t matter that my heart was not in it when I attended for all the wrong reasons. What matters is that God set all the details in place to make sure He could get me to a place where I would hear His voice.
Since that night, life has been filled with changes—both good and bad, but mostly good. It has had additions and losses, fill-ups and drainages, moves and stays, and bumps and bruises. There have been moments that challenged my faith, but there have been far more moments that strengthened it. And through all those changes, the Creator who pursued this resistant soul has never left me.
So when you think your little rejected invitation, or your prayers for someone’s soul, don’t really matter—they do. Even if you can’t find the perfect words to win someone, speak from your heart anyway. God may decide to use a couple that isn’t even serving Him yet as a tool to draw a daughter who desperately needs to meet her Heavenly Father simply because their event helps put all the pieces in place. And in return, just look at how God blessed their event to become a marriage and a family that serves Him and has lasted 43 years so far.
Happy Anniversary Steve and Candie. Thank you for falling in love. Thank you for getting married. Thank you for letting God use you both in my salvation story even when none of us knew what He was doing. May God’s holy presence fill your every moment and bless you abundantly in return for this major blessing in my life. In YahShua’s name, Amen! 🙏💕
2 Corinthians 4:15 NLT
[15] All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.
https://bible.com/bible/116/2co.4.15.NLT
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In The Beginning, God…
The Beginning of Time by Flickr User Trey Ratcliff aka Stuck In Customs, CC License = Attribution, Noncommercial, Share Alike
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First, God. Then, God created. That’s the necessary order for the best possible world because without God and His wisdom, creation would be soulless. But God didn’t want soulless creatures that operated like programmed robots, so He created man in His own image. Like God, we have a soul, a spirit, and a body. As it says in Colossians 2:9, For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. And because we are like Him, we can communicate with Him even from our human bodies while living in this temporary world.
Somehow though, today’s world has gotten wrapped up in the pursuit of knowledge instead of operating from the soul God gave us. But, if knowledge and thinking were enough for a good life, we would have no problem sharing our population with androids, and men would not try so desperately to humanize artificial intelligence. We know from the soul God gave us that life requires more, yet we keep trying to shut out that voice of reason as if what brings pleasure in the flesh should have priority. And even when we conquer the flesh, we often prioritize thoughts and feelings over the wisdom of God’s Spirit.
So, here I sit, working on my 402nd post for this blog and desperately wanting to make sure that I write from the leading of God’s Holy Spirit more than my own thoughts and ideas. At the same time, I must trust that because my creativity is also in God’s image, my ideas can come from Him too. I don’t write for readers nearly as much as wanting to write out of obedience and leaving readers in God’s hands. I guess that’s why I might be something of a perfectionist when I write.
Torah season has started again, but I’m not going to do daily updates on portions. I will, however, post a link to the weekly portion in The Complete Jewish Bible at BibleGateway.com for those who want to follow the annual reading schedule. I actually got a week behind, so you can read the full first week’s portion as part of today’s Shabbat (Sabbath) before sundown on Saturday, October 25th. That portion is Genesis 1:1 through Genesis 6:8. The divisions are written in the CJB, and there is a page with the divided readings and links available at Hebcal.com. The name links to the first portion with a list of links to all other portions.
Another great place to learn about the Torah and Hebrew roots of the Christian faith is Hebrew4Christians.com. Save the following links for your year of reading Genesis through Deuteronomy…
Now, speaking of current reading, for this week, the portion is called “Noah” in English and is Genesis 6:9 through Genesis 11:32. With the seven divisions, this can be seen at http://www.hebcal.com/sedrot/noach. And with all that information, I’d say my readers have a chance at a good beginning for their Torah year. I hope you will join me and my husband this year, and please stop in now and then to tell me what you’re getting out of the readings for yourself and your family.
In closing for the day, I want to say that it is because of God’s original plans and designs at the beginning that we get the new beginnings we experience each day. I believe His plans were to make humans in His image for good communications and interactions with Himself, but we sought flesh and soul over His Spirit. Still, even though we pushed Him behind the stuff we have too often made more important than Him, He comes in with mercies that are new every morning. It’s hard to imagine being loved so much that all we have to do is earnestly desire Him and He’s there with open arms no matter what came before, but that’s the truth. And that truth is shown beautifully in the song He Was There All the Time, so enjoy this video. View it at YouTube to find the lyrics in the video description section…
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