Better Than I Could Have Ever Imagined

Earlier this week I was reading Beth Moore’s blog post “For Real” which asked us readers to “share a season in which we became convinced to the marrow of our bones that this is FOR REAL - that God is real”. I love this kind of thing and knew right away which testimony (limited to one “meaty” paragraph!!) I was going to share with the “siestas”! After I wrote out this testimony, I was thinking how this definitely applies to our blog as a marriage moment. Praying you’ll be encouraged by this testimony of God’s faithfulness. 

The first thing I thought of when I read Beth's post was how the summer after I graduated from Auburn...I had eight friends (close friends!!) get married...so I was a professional bridesmaid and certainly caught my fair share of bouquets! The first month of the summer I went back to one of my favorite places on earth for a missions trip - Uganda. I encountered so many people that didn't have much but the ones that knew the Lord had everything they could possibly need. It was a reminder when I went back home to Tennessee that even though I didn't have the answers for the three recurring questions (1-Where was I gonna work?, 2-Which city was I going to live?, 3-Do I have a boyfriend?)...I did have Jesus in my heart, and I knew that He was all I needed. NO joke...after the last wedding was over at the end of August 2007...my resume had been sent all over the world...from Charlotte to Atlanta to San Diego to Zimbabwe...and after the last wedding, I got a call from a company in Nashville offering me a job. The place I had done an internship before I graduated was in Nashville - so my stuff was literally still in a storage unit there. 

Five months after I moved to Nashville and started working, I went on my first date with now...my husband!! We had been introduced at the Passion 07 conference in Atlanta the January prior to our first date in January 08...and I honestly thought at the time we met that the Lord had introduced him to me as "hope" for that is the kind of guy I would LOVE to marry. So I had prayed and asked God to clone him. Well, turns out that God showed me that his best for me was not the clone...his best for me was the real thing!! I could not even believe it the first time my now husband called me...it felt too good to be true. After a few months of dating, he proposed and we were married that September. Looking back, I still can't believe how perfect God's plan is. The fact that I had no idea how those three things would turn out but kept believing God to be right on time and thanking Him in the advance for how I knew He had the perfect plan for me - still amazes me. Be encouraged that God is into the big and small details of your life. Living in Nashville, working at a dream job, and being married to someone better than I could have ever imagined is truly a testament to God's faithfulness. 

I’ll never forget sitting in staff devotion one Monday morning when the leader of the devo asked us all to write down three “miracles” that the Lord did between now and a year ago. In other words, if we were making this list a year ago - what were three things that we would have said, “If this really happens - it would be a miracle”. It was so neat to write down these three things that seemed so far fetched at the time - and look back to how God had provided. Be encouraged by Ephesians 3:20-21 which says, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

Closing statement from the man of the house: “ So far in my first 29 years, I've experienced  a lot of good things and I've had my share of trials. But one of my favorite verses says, "You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing." -Psalm 16:2