A Good Story
Dear Champions,
This is our last visit with the relationship short excerpts for a while. This excerpt is not as short as I would like, but it is a good read. It is an email sent to Andy Stanley. The Scripture is Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
Hey Andy,
I assume you get a lot of these emails, but after listening to the first two weeks of this series, I just couldn't ignore God pressing it on my heart to send this.
Like many, I grew up in a broken home, and at the age of five my mother moved us 600 miles away from my father. When I was 12 years old, I got "the talk" from my mother, and while I do recall her encouraging me to wait until I found someone I loved, there was no encouragement to save sex until marriage. All I knew about sex was what my friends were doing and this knowledge took me into my high school years with a constant state of numbness, giving myself away to every boyfriend I had.
During my first year of college I began surrounding myself with different people. My new friends and I started attending Buckhead Church, and it became a routine for me to listen to messages online. One night I found myself sitting in my dorm room listening to the "Twisted Category of One" talk. I wasn't remotely prepared for what I was about to hear.
I can remember everything about that night. It was a moment of truth in my life, and my largest milestone to this day. I was in tears, writing notes like a mad man. I was slapped in the face with the truth about sex, and the shallowness of my relationship with God was revealed. I finally realized the connection between my experience with sex and my life of numbness. My "intimacy factor" was gone. Everything became real when you gave the one year challenge (Andy challenges sexually active singles to not date for one year and focus on their relationship with God). I had no idea how I was going to do that, but I printed out my notes, grabbed a pen, and wrote "November 6, 2007. No dating for one year. No sex until marriage." And then I signed it.
The very next day I wrote in my journal, "I made it one day, God." It was the most challenging thing I had ever been faced with. There were so many guys floating around in my life. I had to cancel my text messaging, and slowly began to feel sensitivity to my sin. Just one month after stepping up to the plate with God, I already began to feel Him work in my heart.
A few months later, an old high school acquaintance contacted me through Facebook. He was currently working as a youth minister and noticed through my online bio that I had changed. He asked to hear my story, and I told him about my November 6 commitment. He became someone who spoke truth into what God was showing me and helped me with the messes that I was still caught up in. With complete purity and altruism in his heart, he led me closer to God.
When November 6 rolled around, he asked to take me on a date. I went, but after our date I told him I just wanted to be friends. Four months passed, as well as a few dates with other guys, and we ran into each other again. I was so excited to see him. I had thought a lot about the lack of substance in the previous dates I had been on. We continued to talk, and I slowly saw it all come together. I saw the beauty of what God wanted to do through our lives. He was a virgin and had made the commitment when he was young to stay pure until marriage. I felt unworthy of that. He had a lifestyle that I desired, but didn't feel deserving of, and yet he wanted to bring me with him. I saw Jesus in him. I was precious to him. It was in April 2009, one year and five months after my purity commitment, that I saw God's plan unfolding and we began dating.
Our love story continued on for little over a year, and in July 2010 he asked me to marry him. Our relationship is founded on friendship and faith, and I felt God's confirmation. We set our marriage date exactly three years after God changed my life-Saturday, November 6, 2010.
We just celebrated six months of marriage, and I am in tears thinking of what we have been through. If it wasn't for "the year thing" and all God changed in my heart, not only would I be incapable of loving him the way he deserves to be loved, I probably wouldn't love him at all. We are so thankful to God for calling us into bigger stories than the ones we would have written for ourselves.
Thanks for reading.
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining
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