28-7-2008 - Our 3rd Year Meeting Anniversary!

My mood while writing this blog: Blessed, Perfectly content!

I am writing about this b/c I love this story and b/c I promised one of you that I would - several months ago! J, please forgive my delay! :)

Yesterday was a special day. We celebrate it with our whole hearts. We also get some good-natured flack from our loved ones for doing so, but we don't care! For it was our 3rd year of knowing one another. Our 3rd year of God making this match!

Tom was divorced for over 20 years! He had faithfully attended and loved his growing children all the while through his visitation rights. He had hoped and waited most of those years for reconciliation with his wife after begging forgiveness and while living a life of continual repentance. As the years went by and the children grew into young adults, he saw this as becoming more and more impossible, but still he waited... He taught Sunday School to jr. high boys for 10 years, and was able to have his son live with him during his high school years. Still he waited.... there were women that he dated, but none of them were "right", so he waited...

Meanwhile, in Illinois, I was working on and praying for my marriage for YEARS... waiting for God to FIX IT! My husband only got deeper and deeper into pornography, until there was virtually nothing left of the boy I loved and married! It was a long, horrid, painful death; watching your dearest love and someone on whom you relied upon for so much, die from rebellion! Refusing to give up something that was killing him --- and his family. After 4 major separations, I finally was given grace to accept his ever-present threat of divorce. We spent a miserable year in court. Then my loving family called for me and the boys to come to them in CA. After much wrestling with my own desires (IL had been our home for 10 years!) I knew it was best for my boys to be near my brothers, so we came.

We lived in what we lovingly called "The Commune @ North P" for 2.5 years. Me and my 3 growing, now-teenage sons, moving in with my "baby" brother, his wife, and their 2 very small children. His wife I had only really met twice - just for visits! And they had just moved into their NOT LARGE home, so happy they were finally able to buy something. God's grace poured out on us all from the beginning! It was so amazingly seamless! We had some tough moments, but only moments! Mostly there was love, understanding, fun, and growing!

But I knew it was time for me to do SOMETHING! I tried conservative dating. Three men were candidates - all flopped! So I went back to college (to add to my one college English course! :) My eldest son had already completed a semester at our very local Jr. College and we decided that he would take me to the campus, show me around and help me get my books and so forth. (We got a good laugh out of this b/c being homeschooled his whole life, Mommy had never taken HIM to school!! LOL!)

At this time, a few things were coming together both Tom and myself. We had no idea the other existed, but God was bringing events to pass for us to prepare us for The Day!

Tom had one relationship that he was never able to desire to cement into marriage no matter how hard they both tried. They finally ended this relationship. He was also growing weary of all his church commitments, desiring a change of everything but, not knowing why...

I was mostly able to release my deep desire for a relationship, even though in my journal I beg God like this: "There has GOT to be ONE good man out there!!! PLEASE may I have him?!" LOL! (I'm serious!) But I also grew to know and declared that if I never married again, my life would be FULL and HAPPY! And that God STILL had a PLAN for me!! It was all good! But I didn't want to be a "cling-on" for my growing sons... hence college. I had to DO something!

Then one day, I walked by the mail pile on the kitchen counter. My brother had subscribed to "Table Talk" magazine, a small devotional, for years, from R.C. Sproul's ministries, Ligonier. They come in monthly. This month we had TWO. I flipped over the top copy, a little curious as to the duplication. It was addressed to Thomas M on Pine Street. That was FOUR blocks away! Now the reason for my surprise is that even in Christianity, you have variations of doctrine - or systems of belief. We are "reformed" (as in holding to the teachings of the Reformers) - basically meaning that we believe in the Absolute sovereignty of God. That we don't come to Him b/c of ANYthing in our selves, that we CAN'T because our corrupt nature makes us spiritually DEAD and UNABLE! It is HE that must do the work in us. We travel a long distance to get to a church that teaches this! To find that someone 4 BLOCKS AWAY was getting our same little reformed devotional magazine was quite a find!! I assumed it was a family and HAD TO MEET THEM!!!

July 27, 2005 - about 4:00 p.m. Tom had taken the DAY OFF (not usual for this almost work-aholic!) to take his Sunday School kids to an A's baseball game. He had just gotten home, changed his clothes and thought, "I am never home this early. What am I going to do with the rest of my day?" and put his feet up with a glass of orange juice.

4:15 p.m. Coleman had taken me on campus, we had a huge bag of books (all pointing to a degree in horticulture!) with us and my spirits were quite bouyant! I had a direction, a new purpose! Then I saw that little "Table Talk" on his dashboard. "Oh! Let's run by this house and see if anyone is home!" We pulled up out front and there was a car in the driveway. I said, "Let's both go up!"

4:20 p.m. Knock, knock. Tom comes to the door. "Hello?"

I throw my hands up clutching the magazine in my usual dramatic way, and say loudly with excitement, "Are you a REFORMED person living in Livermore??! I have your TABLETALK magazine!!"

That was the beginning! :) He invited us in and we talked non-stop for over 2 hours. We pulled out books and magazines and talked, talked, talked... Coleman just sat mostly quietly the entire time, watching. Finally, I said, "I gotta go! But you should come to dinner on Sunday evening. Our pastor is coming over and you should meet him!" My motives truly were just that, though at that dinner they began to change... :)

Here is the cream of the story: Tom had pictures of his now fully adult children all over. Coleman had been studying them and before we took our leave, he asked, "Is that Becky?" He had been serving her regularly at Starbucks for over a year and they were on a firstname basis!

We said good-bye and as we got into the car, Coleman said, "It would be weird if you married Becky's Dad, Mom" with his wry grin. I replied, "Coleman! I'm an not MARRYING him!!"

December 29, 2005 - 6:30 p.m. After finishing my only full semester of college with straight A's, I did just that!!!