My story is long, so I will try to give just the highlights here. While I was a child, my parents would sometimes go to the Lutheran church. When I heard the pastor tell the story where Jesus said, "Follow me", I LONGED to do that. But how could I, when Jesus was no longer here on earth? My mom tried to answer my question, but she simply gave the gospel story, without making it a point of personal decision. When I was old enough to go to Catechism, I asked the pastor the same question. He gave me an answer from Luther's catechism, which I could not really understand. (I was 12.)
Cut to a young woman, age 28, mired in sin. She searches the Bible to learn that she is indeed, living a sinful life. One day, she inadvertently hears an aquaintance say that she is cleaning her house because she is having a Bible study there. "A BIBLE STUDY??? Can anyone come?”
“Why, yes, would you and your husband like to come?”
“I don’t know about him, but I would LOVE to come!” (My husband wanted nothing of religion or church.)
But someone he knew from a previous job called and invited him to it. (The guy happened to be a cousin to the woman whose home it was at.) My husband didn’t know how to turn the guy down, so he went with me.
That first study began a five-week study of Romans. We learned how God had sought to bring all of mankind close to him. How he had given man over to sin, then brought his own son to earth to die and pay the penalty for our sin. On the third week, we had the question put to us. “What will you do with Jesus?” We were shown from the bible how we were either “for him or against him” and there were no other options. So I chose to “follow him”, as I had always longed to do. The great thing was, my husband did too!
Our marriage was not instantly healed, but it was better! I asked my husband’s forgiveness, and he forgave me. And as we learned how to die to ourselves, we forged a bond that was unlike anything previous in our relationship. Also, he had previously not wanted children (without telling ME—he always skirted the issue), as he thought they should not be brought into such a terrible world. (This had been a crushing disappointment to me, as I wanted children, and never dreamed I might not have that life.) Now he had hope, and we became pregnant. (This was after ten years of marriage.) We have three children now. All grown, home schooled so that we could teach them godly ways, and all are walking with the Lord. Not only that, now my brother, my mother, my sister-in-law, my sister, her husband, their 3 kids, other members of the family and several friends have come to know Christ. Why God chose us to be the first believers in the family is so humbling to me.
One more thing: I love my husband more now than ever before, and we have been married for 35 years. Just over half of what Billy and Ruth Graham were married when she passed away this week. That encourages me. However, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
By the way, years after that bible study we learned that the missionary couple who held that study prayed for three years for "one couple" to be saved when they came home on furlough. That prayer was answered in us. But notice the ripple effect of that prayer. God multiplied it many many times. And who knows how far it will reach? May His Name and His Name alone be praised.
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