Your Love Story
He worked all things together into a love story I could never imagine.
I asked Gary this morning if little boys dream of getting married someday like little girls do. He explained in his own experience that he was never caught up in the imaginations of marriage as a little boy. Once the hormones kicked in, he was very interested in having a girlfriend. It wasn’t until he was a young adult, looking at life, that he began to consider marriage as a part of the human experience. It’s just what you do next in life.
I believe this is the typical experience for men: hormones awake, girlfriends are sought, and marriage becomes a goal. Personally for Gary, he did not experience an actual desire for it until he saw what God saw in it. This explains why children’s films involving romance are princess-driven. The majority of rom-coms are stories driven by women striving and sometimes scheming for a marriage-come-true.
Gary and I have a very unique love story. I just published my second book, Choosing Life After Rape. It is my personal testimony of doing just that. When I consider our love story, I have wondered at times how that experience fits into our “happy ending.” I think I’ve figured it out now. Most girls begin to dream of falling in love and living (married) happily ever after very early. Many circumstances can kill that innocence, but it is where most of us start because it is how God has designed the female psyche. I believe girls hold the keys that open to and lock in romantic love. The desire to have and to hold until death parts naturally develop in girls early, preparing them to hold out for more than a kiss; they want a love until death parts. They want a lover willing to risk everything to be with them forever. It’s nearly every princess movie written.
I was no different. The love story that stirred me as a pre-schooler was Sleeping Beauty. You’ll get the background on that in our next book, Violets in the Snow. That dream of destined love was haunted by lies of my worth and desirability into adulthood. That dream was also threatened to be lost forever after the rape experience. When I chose life for my daughter, I chose LIFE, the Person of Jesus Christ, and fell in love, first with the Prince of Peace and second with the one He chose for me until death parts, Gary. The story God wrote between those gifts of love can be summarized as He worked all things together into a love story I could never have imagined.
My dream of true love was seized, dropped into a deep well of hopelessness, and sold to the lowest bidders. BUT GOD, as my daughter likes to say, worked what was meant for evil and turned the captivity of my innocent desires into a love story no fairytale can compare with.
This Christmas, I want to encourage you to love your First Love, Jesus, with your thanks, your worship, and your faith. He is working all things together into a love story you can’t imagine for yourself. That’s why He doesn’t need your help, He’s doing it for you. He is preparing it to be a gift to you like He is. There is nothing in your past that is working against your desires for a destined love. Your past is part of the great drama He is using to make your love story blow minds and work to turn the moral compass of a generation like ours.
Merry Christmas, GOTR Friends. See you soon in 2024 when Gary takes over the blog keyboard, and I attempt a devotional podcast called Veiled (help:-0)
Be sure to follow our IG to stay in touch with all the kool things we’re bringing to you in the new year, including the ramp-up release activity of Violets in the Snow!
