LIKING TURNS INTO .....

ANOTHER POST BY MILTON:

For new readers to this site, I am writing since Kristy's battle with a GBM brain tumor and her passing on July 21. Kristy made me a romantic so I write to share christian love stories.

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Is it possible to know that someone is right for you and that God is in it and to yet know that you have not yet have fallen in love with them? Does God speak His mind and heart before feelings, emotions, romance, attraction, fun, sparks, dating, or any other "normal" dimensions of relationship building takes place?

Does God speak to us in the manner that He spoke to me in my inner man saying that "Wanda is the one that I have for you....." Is it possible that I just had an emotional moment and got caught up into something that I felt or think is God and really it is just a spiritually, emotional meltdown?

I know the answers to these questions in my heart. There were becoming too many affirmations from too many sources that were not connected and had no reason to push this new love. Kristy felt this new love before her death. A voice came to me in the night that said Wanda was the one God had for me. Jennifer, my youngest daughter, blurted out that she knew who God had for me and later told me that it was Wanda. And there were others to come who were totally separate from each other.

How could all this happen? Had they seen something that would point to this relationship? Had they all talked and collaberated? Was this a grand scheme? 

My mind went to the story of Abraham sending his servant, Eliezer, to get a bride for Isaac. This was a prearranged marriage that began in the heart of God. Eliezer prayed for guidance as he went to Abraham's home land to seek a bride. The story notes divine direction, diving order, divine obedience, diving faith, and divine excitement. I am sure that Isaac prayed over this matter but he wasn't specifically involved in the procuring process. (Now doens't that sound just like a man--"procuring process".) We do not have a Biblical record that Rebecca was praying before Eliezer got there or that she prayed after she gave him and his camel's water to drink, but I am sure she must have prayed, and we know that Isaac was meditating in the field when Rebeccca arrived on the very camels she had watered for Eliezer.

Here is the kicker about Isaac and Rebecca's love story. God directed this relationship and ordered their steps and before they fell in love. Eliezer told Rebecca's family about his servant Abraham and Abraham's son Isaac's need for a wife. Both Isaac and Rebecca had to "buy into" this miraculous romance. They had not dated, or written, or spent nights on long phone calls, or spent any time together, but they accepted what God was doing and we read that they fell in love later. I will write more about Isaac and Rebecca and Eliezer in future posts.

That is what had to happen in the new relationship between Wanda and me. I didn't fall in love with Wanda to prove the affirmations, but when I did fall in love I already knew God had ordered this relationship. God had spoken very clearly to me and I had to walk it out and still am to see and let God affirm all of what I had been told.

And, Wanda had to work out all this in her mind and heart before God. She is a lady of prayer and God had some answers to her questions that would give her peace of heart and mind.

God is faithful.

This may seem like I am in an eternal circle in describing what happened, but I am just trying to make a couple of points. First, God was definitely speaking in this matter, and second we had to connect or develop a deeper friendship and fall in love or none of those voices or words mattered and it all had to happen naturally without pressure. 

Wanda is well respected by all that know her. My family all have affirmed my life and walk. Wanda loved Jim deeply and I respected him and Wanda. I loved Kristy with all my heart and Wanda respected Kristy and me. All of our relationships had been honorable and pure. 

When these unusual happening began to occur, I didn't tell anyone. I kept them in my heart. I waited to see if things would turn toward Wanda. I am writing this story reflecting back and now have a greater confidence it what happened and those "words" and "voices" that all pointed toward Wanda.

But we still hadn't fallen in love. Our relationship was one of mutual respect. Years ago we had a work relationship with honor and no attraction. There was no reason for attraction.

Admiration? Yes. 

Respect? Yes. 

Attraction? No. 

We were both very happy with our marriages and had worked hard to have great marriages and worked hard to honor God in our marriages.

So how did respect, honor, admiration turn into love?

The more we talked on the phone nightly the more common interests, purpose, goals, and future began to collide in a good and peaceful way. We liked talking. We like talking to each other. We have commonality. There just was an amazing connection taking place.

To be honest about it I really didn't know that Wanda could talk that much. She had always been so quiet around me.

She always was, "Yes sir to me." or "No sir." 

Could I get that to continue? That is a little joke....very little. That certainly wasn't the kind of relationship I wanted now. I did not want a boss" relationship as we had years earlier. 

I didn't want to hear "Yes sir" from her. I wanted something dear, sweet, loving, and filled with kindness from her.

I know we must have had conversations of some length in the past, but I can't ever remember a one of them. We talked but we didn't talk so much. She was quiet. Respectful. Dutiful. Efficient. Kind. Thoughtful. 

But she wasn't a talker.

At least that is what I thought.

Now we couldn't get off the phone. We had clear, good, common communication. I was liking what I was hearing. The common interests were connecting, clicking, and coming at a very fast pace. The more we talked the more I liked and the more I liked the more I.....

Was this turning into love?

Quiet. Respect. Dutiful. Efficient. Kind. Thoughtful. 

Was all that now turning into a new love?

All those words and voices were standing behind me. They were helping affirm and solidify that this was a godly, good thing. It was feeling right not because I felt that I had to fall in love because I had no choice in the matter. I wasn't about to make a relationship "happen" to fulfill a wish by Kristy or a voice the came to me in the night or to make Jennifer's blurted out word come true.

If we couldn't love each other because we love each other then all those experiences would just become unusual happenings that I would look back on one day with more humor than anything else.

So how did Wanda process me telling her that Kristy said she was the one for me? It took her several days to work through what I had shared. She is mature and not gullible or easily shaken, but this was a fairly bold move on my part. 

Or was it? 

Did God have me to blurt that out or no? Looking back I think that God was in that to move the relationship in a more serious, faster moving manner. 

Wanda did process it and she did by waiting on God and letting Him prove himself. She told me later that I was moving too fast. What I had told her about Kristy knowing who God wanted me to marry caused her to take pause and go to God in prayer. She could have easily been totally turned off by all this, but she did respect Kristy and admired Kristy as a mentor. She know the life that Kristy lived and had respect for me even though this was one surprising jolt. 

Somehow and I am not sure how but we worked through that and now it seems to both of us that somehow it was amazingly providential that I said that to her. There may have been subconscious pychological ramifications to all of this, but it wasn't planned or contrived or made up. This is a real story told with real honesty with real hearts to honor God.

After a few days the calls continued and liking began to turn into .....