It’s funny how God worked all of this out…and more “funny” how he radically changed my heart and fit me for what was ahead.
Looking back over the whole thing I can feel nothing but gratitude.
I truly am so grateful for what God denied or didn’t allow to happen.
Had I not walked through that year or so of disappointment, I might never have realized that my hope in a very good thing had become an idol…and it might still be there. Worse, it might be there in an actual relationship and be causing greater damage to me…and another person.
What the Lord taught me and showed me through that experience helped me to walk and think and feel and act more appropriately when another single man found himself in my line of vision.
And that happened approximately 4 hours later!!!
Crazy, but true.
I was trying to sleep on the bus, minding my own business, and woke up cold. I had stupidly packed my jacket in my suitcase and was wearing short sleeves. I turned and asked the ladies behind me if they had an extra jacket or blanket…they didn’t. As I turned to settle back in my seat the guy in the seat next to me got up, took a sweater out of his bag and set it in his lap. My heart skipped a beat…”He got that for me?!?!” But he just sat there with the sweater in his lap, looking at it. I tried to look like I wasn’t paying attention as it seemed he was working up his nerve to offer it to me. He turned to face me, still looking at the sweater, then, he faced forward again, then towards me, then forward. Finally I thought “Well, I guess he is just going to let me be cold” and shut my eyes and tried to sleep again. When I looked up later (just to check) he had put the sweater over his head, I am guessing to block out the incredible glare from the moon. :)
Had that happened a day earlier, my heart would have been his…but with the idol dismantled, I could now act in wisdom…and though I was touched and thought it would be nice to get to know such a thoughtful person (even though he needed to work on follow-through). Walking in wisdom kept me from thinking about him over-much, it allowed me to talk to him like a normal person, and not to marry him in my mind when our contact increased. It also helped me to not be disappointed when 3, 6, 12, 18 months later he was still not pursuing me.
There have been other godly men to cross my path since then…and still others who have the appearance but not the substance. Wisdom has protected me in those instances, too. It has kept me from giving my heart away, from dating them in my mind, and from investing emotionally in men who will in all likelihood be someone else’s husband someday.
None of that would have been possible were it not for that one painful year.
And I am so grateful!
How much better to get wisdom than gold!
To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver (Proverbs 16:16).
Still more to come...
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