Journey into Lightl

As I described in my last posting, I had begun a journey with God in pursuing a relationship with an attractive young lady named Adele. I didn’t know where the journey would lead, but God had told me that it would lead to marriage. But I didn’t believe it. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to get married at the time.

The Journey Continues

The next step on this journey was to plan a first date. I wanted to make it a creative experience. I prayed and finally decided on inviting her to what I thought was a college play. I invited the friend from work (who had tried to get me to date Adele) and his wife to join us.

The play turned out to be a disaster! The whole play was a musical sung off-key from start to finish. It was so bad, that it was good because it provided my friend fodder for wise cracks at my expense. In addition, I experienced Adele’s compassion as she tried to defend my choice of a date.

I sensed that God wanted to developed our relationship very slowly. He also wanted me to stay focused on doing right by her. He didn’t want me to focus on impressing her to avoid being rejected. He assured me that he would protect me from this hurt.

Our next date was about two months later. I decided to take her ice skating. Since I wasn’t trying to impress her, I didn’t give it much thought that I didn’t ice skate very well. Surprisingly, she was impressed that I would take her to do something that I wasn’t good at. I even revealed to her a few other weaknesses that night.

By the end of the third or fourth date, my relationship with Adele was more than a friendship to me. As a result, I started feeling insecure. I wanted some kind of commitment from her that would assure me that I wouldn’t be rejected. I thought about going steady, but God used a friend to convince me that that was a terrible idea and would kill the relationship. I decided to turn to God for the strength to continue developing feelings for her without assurances that she felt the same way.

I began to increase the frequency of our dates to try to bring some closure to the relationship before I headed back east for the summer to finish a Master’s degree that I had started while I was in the Air Force. However, the harder I tried, the more obstacles got in the way of moving the relationship forward. I finally gave up and accepted the fact I would need to head east without closure.

The Relationship Moves to A New Level

As I was saying good-bye to her for the summer, she told me that because she was a here-and-now person, she didn’t think she would miss me while I was gone (like I had been telling her that I would miss her). I immediately looked God in the eyes and said in my mind, “Look at the mess you’ve got me into. She has no feelings for me even though I have strong feelings for her. This relationship was your idea, not mine. I can’t make her like me. Only you can do that. I can’t go on with this relationship until you do something. I will put this relationship on hold until she is in a similar place as I am.

I then accepted the fruit and cookie basket that she had prepared for me, and drove off broken-hearted.

Little did I know that God took only five minutes to answer that prayer. When she realized that I was actually gone for two and one-half months she began to cry. And she cried and cried nearly continuously for the next two days. She realized that she did have feelings for me and would miss me after all. I believe today that God answered my prayer by both changing her heart and in helping her realize how she actually felt.

I was not to know for two more weeks her change of feelings for me. Meanwhile, I grew increasingly pessimistic about the relationship as I headed east and by the time I had arrived in Missouri, I had concluded that the relationship was probably over.

Next week I will share how God continued to lead on this challenging journey. Little did I know that the relationship was moving beyond a friendship towards a romance.