Feb.2011 Rejoice in Love

So there I was in India, surrounded by people that I would soon share life with. Looking down the line for food and seeing Ashers smile, I found myself questioning if it were possible. Every time a thought of Asher came into my head, during those next few days I tried hard to toss it up to God. 

I found comfort in the fact that none of it was in my hands. It was up to God to push my husband towards me and I didn't want to even think about it. I also worked to remind myself of the journal entry I had written years before; "I will not attract. He will catch Gods word before I catch his eye." 

I remember one night Asher showing seeming interest in me. After this I escaped to a place alone outside and repeated to myself and God, "He doesn't like me, He doesn't like me. God, please help me get over this. Please help me not want this. He doesn't like me. He doesn't like me." I felt like God stopped me with a sure and loving voice, "Lara, he likes you!" I wasn't sure how to respond to that so I just told God goodnight and went inside to sleep. After that I became more open to Asher and tried to show response to any interest he seemed to express. 

It didn't take long at all before we were off on our first date. It was the most perfect day. A beautiful mountain trail, a sunset and Tibetan Food. Constant conversations with God and about God filled up our day. It happened a number of times that Asher would stop and address God in the middle of our conversation, making a request, thanking Him, or just telling Him how good and faithful He has been to us. By the end of that date we were talking of marriage and we were so in love. Eleven months later we were finally married and full of thankfulness of what the Lord had done.  

For those of you who are married, can you remember the beginning? So giddy, so excited and you knew that your love would be among the strongest and last forever. Healing and joy came out from the beginning of your relationship, there was so much excitement. This is how it is for most that enter into a marriage relationship.

Yet, it doesn't always end this way does it? Actually when you hear the way most people talk after being married for a few years, they view that season of romance as being at best, "blinded." They look at it and say, "how naive we were" often you can hear the bitterness in their voices, you can see the pride they develop from the idea that they are "beyond that".

Love and romance are so strong in the beginning it is hard to believe that "work" would have to be put into loving each other. But that kind of beginning love is not a blind love, it is a real and awake love. It might not have the depth of sacrifice and knowledge that develops as marriage goes on but it is still very real, and very good.

I think God loves this stage of passion, He wants us to look back at it with not only thankfulness but with a desire for more of it. It should be one of our pursuits. Just as God calls his bride back to Him as her first love, so does He want us to pursue that place of fresh love in all that we are meant to love.

He wants us to pursue it in our marriages, but also our churches, our friendships, and mostly our relationship with Him. We can develop that same bitter pride towards our relationship with God. We will look at the fresh passion and zeal that new believers have and instead of rejoicing in it or longing for it again, we judge it. We puff ourselves up and think to ourselves, "those young souls will soon face the reality." How blind we are.

God we repent for our pride, for our excuses and for our cold love. Help us long to love again. May we love all that we are meant to love. Through total self-sacrifice, and passion and lovesick admiration of You and our spouses, churches, friends, nature, blessings, calling and life..

Part 4- God on the other side, setting up the scene.

While I was going through that season of pain and confusion Asher was on the other side of the world, trusting God who was unfolding the opportunity for Asher to remain in India and work in the boys home and school that his parents started. He had plans of starting a business with his Engineering degree but God made it clear to him that he was meant to stay and work with his parents. For that year he made a pledge to God that he wouldn't consider entering into a relationship with someone, even if the perfect one came. He wanted to give that year to complete focus on God. As that year was wrapping up he felt a sense from God that his wife was coming at the beginning of that next year, 2011.

This is why I love our story because in the midst of our most confusing and difficult seasons, God was working. We couldn't see Him working, we questioned his concern for our lives, but he was very active through the entire process. He is always active, always working. Always concerned and always in love with us, feeling our pain and seeing the light that we sometimes just can't see. This is why it's important to listen to him and to ask to see things the way he does, to meditate on the good not on the unknown. To cling to trust, not to our own plans and desires. 

Part 3- Letting go of the vision and walking through a season of pain

As Asher persevered faithfully through that desert season of confusion and disappointment, the grey clouds began to move from his skies over into mine. I walked out of that "one year of faith" and straight into a desert. I heard some things through the grapevine concerning Asher that made me think I was wrong about his character and spirit. All the information added up to this final conclusion, "I must not have heard God." What a fool I was to trust appearance and people above God. So I let go of the whole thing. I thought maybe the vision of the arrow was real and I was going to get married to someone.. but everything I felt about Asher was certainly wrong. I'm sure I had hidden away in my heart a hope for the fairytale to be true, but I wouldn't allow it into my mind, at least not for very long. So I allowed my heart to open up to others. A few years of close calls, confusion, praying about marriage, considering and then letting my heart go at times made my heart a bit bruised. Then I experienced betrayal, abandonment, and rejection from a few people in a short turn around of time, and I felt like it was God who led me straight into the pain. That was the few months before coming to India. And I found myself asking God, "How did I get here?" and I never heard an answer. I was going through the same sense of confusion that Asher was experiencing when I first met him. I felt like I was in the dark and God just let me stay there to be confused and alone. I wondered, "God are you even involved?" and I never heard an answer. Well, maybe not "never", because soon the pieces would all come together and I would see the glory of Gods redemptive power and the way he weaves all of our struggles and comforts, failures and faith  together to reveal to us the glory of who He is and his mighty love for us.

Part 2- On the Other Side of The Story

So I continued in that fragile but sure faith for one year. I never befriended him on facebook or tried to email him. I wanted to cling to my trust of God putting it together. I didn't want to catch his eye, or even one of his thoughts. Every now and then I must confess, I would look on my friends facebook page to find a picture of him and I would read the blog he wrote for his cycling trip. That’s how I discovered his name was actually, Asher. That means happiness, and that felt like a promise to me. But other than that, I knew nothing about his life or what he was doing before or beyond the cycling trip. And he certainly didn't know anything about me. I'm sure he must of forgotten my name a few seconds after being introduced to me. But that entire year I felt a sure promise from God that this was my husband and God had it all planned out.

It was in that same year, that Asher was going through one of the most confusing and dry times of his life. He was actually in pursuit of another girl. One that he felt, and others confidently exclaimed, would be the one for him. That was why he was in Kentucky that night. The same night God was speaking so strongly to me.

He was pursuing her, but he felt stuck. Nothing seemed to be connecting, he kept asking God, "Why am I even here?" and he never heard an answer. He felt like he was in the dark and God just let him stay there to be confused and to figure out life on his own. As the whole idea of him being with that other girl seemed to fall apart over the next year, he wondered, "God are you even involved, do you care at all about these life matters?" and he never heard an answer. Well, maybe not "never", because 4 years later he would find out that in that time of confusion, God sent him down to Kentucky not to be misdirected but to set up his future by giving me a promise.

2007 Part 1- God Giving me a Vision

December 2007. 

I was crying. Crunched over, head to my closet floor. I was putting marriage and children on the altar. These were desires that I felt were rising above my desire to bless God. I was sure that I wasn't wholly given to eternity because these two earthly wants were deep in the core of me and I could feel their fierce strength grabbing at my soul.  I was crying and begging God to take marriage and children away from me if that is what would bless him. I begged him to take all of it, to take any of it. And I was sobbing, partly because of the loss and partly because of the joy of being completely offered to God. There is nothing that brings more joy than wholly abandoned, love driven sacrifice.  In that same moment of longing for a husband and children, I was longing for singleness with God. It was a true lovesick longing and appreciation for God, not a religious need to sacrifice or be made worthy by my offering. It was because of love and because of wanting full surrender to God. So I was torn and I was broken, I was desperate and I was full of life, it was bringing me to life.

Suddenly God stopped everything; the crying, the frantic offering, and there was only peace. (This next part of the story is amazing to me…) I then saw in my thoughts a map of the world with a red arrow crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Kentucky. I immediately felt extreme devotion to my husband. It was unlike anything I've ever felt before. There was so much love and devotion that I knew he was real. I was longing for someone that my spirit already knew. I remember freezing and then letting out a small chuckle to God, "Well I guess that means you want me to marry!"

That same night I felt like I should call my friend to see if she wanted to spend some time together. She couldn't because she had guests over, a brother and sister from India. I thought of the arrow. She invited me over. Anticipation filled my stomach, and my heart was suddenly overwhelmed by that same romantic devotion I felt when I had the arrow vision. I tried hard to dismiss it. I prayed. It seemed so silly. I hadn't even met him. I don't know anything about him! He could be 12 years old or 40 years old, he could be married, or hate God with all of his heart! I didn't even know his name, what a foolish thing to believe that this stranger is my husband.

I went to her house, walked in the door, and I can see that moment now as if I were looking at a photograph.  He was sitting on the couch directly across from the door and he had a guitar in his hands. I knew him in that moment, it was like seeing my lifelong best friend. And now that I truly do know him, it is amazing to me that everything I felt was true! He was strong but gentle. He was full of adventure but safe.

I was introduced to him and his sister. Because of his accent I thought his name was pronounced as Assure. And that made me happy… you can understand why. I had so much faith in that experience that I was convinced God would make it happen. I gathered only a few bits of information that night. He was an engineer working in New York, He grew up in an orphanage that his parents started, he was going back for a couple months to cycle through India and raise money for his brothers street ministry. He told a few stories involving mountains, swimming in rivers, and biking. I was head over heals! Fully in love and fully convinced that this stranger I knew for only 20 minutes was my husband. I just needed to wait.

That night I journaled about the whole experience. I ended the entry with this sentence. "I will not attract. He will catch Gods word before I catch his eye. There's a strong faith in me and a desperate longing for that faith to be real. But I feel the fear of that faith being in vain. I feel quite fragile."

Thank you God for how involved you are in our lives. Thank you for touching us, speaking to us, caring about us. Thank you for giving us dreams and visions and hopes and comforts. Help us to never take destiny into our own hands but to walk by faith, trust and submission to your plans. This can be one of the scariest things to transition to. From control to trust. Help us do it more and more. We love you.