He's Not Dead!

We go through different seasons.  Sometimes life is tough, the valley is deep, rainy, dark and shadowy.  Sometimes we truely find ourselves standing on the edge of an abyss with no means to cross but an acrobat and a tightrope.  Other times life is literally a picnic in the meadow, blissful sunshine, all is well.

The months of March and April were truly a picnic.  Unlike any I've ever known.  Complete with the red and white checkered table cloth.  Part of me hesitates to go into detail because I don't have to look far at all to see friends and family hurting, struggling. And who wants to rub rainbows and sunshine in the face of suffering, death?  But a Voice in my head says "Jesus is Lord of all".  Every hurt, sorrow, disappointment.  Every joy, every answered prayer.  As Ann Voskamp says "All is Grace."  And while it's probably easier to say that in the sunshine, I KNOW it to be true.  I know that living fully, full of thankfulness during the good times keeps my focus on Him and trains me to attribute all to Him so that when the rainy days come (and they will), my heart is drawn to Him (rather than away).

Sometime around the end of March, David called me over the lunch hour and said that he'd just had lunch with Pastor Terry.  He said "You probably won't like me telling you this over the phone, but I reckon it's time for me to make a change."  I don't remember every remark word for word, but I do remember that one.  My breath caught in my throat and my hands went cold.  I remember not quite getting it.  It was kind of surreal.  I thought I knew what he was saying, but he hadn't made it very clear.  Bless his heart, I know serious stuff like this is kinda awkward for him so we didn't end up talking very long.

Everything I thought I'd be at that moment, I simply wasn't.  I didn't crumble into a sobbing mess.  I didn't run around the house laughing and cheering.  I don't really know whether this is a good or bad thing (it was just reality for me), but I simply breathed quiet thanks (and asked God if it was really true) and held my breath all afternoon until he got home.  We sat in the living room and, as expected if you know David, he didn't say much.  So I tried to gently pull it out of him.  Evidently, he had planned the lunch date with Pastor Terry the Sunday before.  And hadn't told me! :) Which is no surprise because I think one of his greatest fears was that I would be all excited and have expectations and then he would feel obligated to fulfill them.  Smart guy.  I asked him if Terry prayed with him and he said "yes".  I think I cried here. :)

Ok, so I'm not gonna claim that I was the perfect wife here.  Because the truth is that I pretty much immediately wondered about the baptism thing.  He said that Terry had mentioned it and that they could talk more about that a little later.  I immediately thought "later = ?", followed by my judgemental, ultra idealistic "baptism {should immediately} follow surrender".  Yeah, I know and I agree.  Sad.  There I go "should-ing" on someone again.  But the truth of it is that God used that reaction as a tool to remind me that I trusted in Him to draw David to Him, will I not trust Him now to lead him?  Sobering.  So I did what I know works.  I prayed.  Every day... in the shower, while cooking supper, sweeping the floor, running errands... that God would give David the courage to take the next step.

A couple weeks later we were catching up after he got home from work and he said that he had lunch with Pastor Terry again and told him he wanted to be baptized.  God is so faithful!  Why are we surprised every time?! :) We brought up several different weekends when my family was going to be here from Kansas and eventually decided on Sunday, April 1st.  Now if you know my husband, you know his knack for coming up with truly funny jokes about things that are not supposed to be funny.  He got a mischevious grin on his face and said "That'll be a good April fools joke."  I disagreed, of course but, seriously?  You hafta admit it's kinda funny.  In the weeks that followed, he also came up with several pranks he could play at his baptism involving the baptismal pool and things like food coloring and tootsie rolls.  Only him.

So things are (obviously) not perfect, but David is a changed man.  Truly.  It's amazing and inspiring and faithbuilding to see the action from a front row seat.  It reminds me again of the joy that surrender brings and the power and peace of the Holy Spirit.

Just one more thing... almost immediately after David told me he had prayed for salvation, I realized that my prayers were not answered in the sense of being finished.  It's funny when you pray for something so long and so desperately, you can't even see beyond that one thing you're praying for.  That's the way it should be though, because it allows us to be incredibly focused.  Then as God works and grows us, we realize that those sleepless nights, those times of heartache were not a burden but a gift of grace and sanctification that we could only see as we continued to walk with and in Him.

Six months or two years or five years ago, I would have jumped at the chance to play God and write the story of David's surrender.  And I have no doubt that I would have thought I could write it perfectly. But, girls, I'm here to say that God has wrote in things I could never have thought up in a million years.  I know now that my most perfect dream doesn't even come close to God's awesome reality.

Let's give the pen to Him!

Easter 2012