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long road out
Wendy Morrow
Marisol is an adventurous world explorer. She currently works as a business consultant in Angola, Africa with her Portuguese husband. Follow her at www.adventuressmari.blogspot.com. |
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I have always been one of those girls who enjoyed observing others dreaming of getting married or finding “the one.” Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I didn’t want to, or that I doubted it would happen to me. I had strong faith in God that I would marry, I just never visualized it for myself — how it would be, where, and when. And I am glad for that because I could not have imagined that my love story would require me to exercise my faith to a different level.
Having and maintaining hope that God will bring the right person into our lives, a companion to journey through life together — I believe this relational area is probably one of the biggest that test our faith in God, especially for women. It’s a struggle and test of our faith because it means not settling for good enough, but waiting for the right person.
I didn’t really have good examples of what a healthy relationship should look like, as my parents had a broken relationship and as much as they tried to hide that from us, we still suffered a lot because of it. I thank them to this day that they never divorced. From them, I have seen living proof that marriage is as much about commitment as it is about love. This negative view toward marriage combined with the fact that I am from Los Angeles, produced some difficult dating years for me. I had always been a very active person, so I didn’t really dwell too much on my singleness, but I was never really in a long-term relationship. Now that I have been living outside of the U.S. for almost six years, I realized how deeply the L.A. culture and habits had been embedded in my mindset. In L.A., it was really easy to reject and ignore men if you disliked one thing or another, making it really difficult to get to know someone beyond their exterior. This habit became evident when I unconsciously tested Pedro with everything I could to make him walk away, thinking that with one thing or another I could lose him.
When I met Pedro, I was undergoing a very demanding business graduate program in
Spain away from family and friends. It was a lonely time, but what drew me to Pedro were his great, distinctive qualities. We hap-pened to be in the same first work group in class. Although we didn’t interact much, he was always respectful to everyone, very patient, funny, and a great public speaker. Soon after, we started to develop a friendship and very much enjoyed our time together. During the program’s summer break, God really spoke to me. He reminded me of His faithfulness to me, all the things He had done in my life to get me to where I was and all the things He still had planned. The truth is that it took a lot of risk on my part, but God provided me with every opportunity I had. Since I was a little girl I was told that God had great plans for me and my hope had been in that. But I knew that I was heading toward serious problems in commitment because Pedro was not a believer. I really liked Pedro but I felt like I had worked so hard to get where I was in all areas of my life, and more importantly I was scared of missing out on God’s purpose for my life if I committed to a man not committed God.
At the end of that summer, I concluded that I needed to tell Pedro about my inner struggle. I told him that I not only believed in God but that I loved Him and that my life was very much centered around Him. While I had come to like Pedro, I ultimately wanted to be with someone that I could share my faith and my beliefs with. I had chosen my course. While I was communicating this with Pedro, it felt as if I was having my last conversation with him, expecting him to understand and giving him a clean open door to walk away from me and from God. But to my surprise, he didn’t. Pedro shot back with an honest desire to know God. I was not prepared for this. He wanted time and he asked me to have faith in him. Pedro had come from a non-religious background — his parents were both political activists and decided not to educate him in religion — so in my heart of hearts, I struggled. I told him that I didn’t want him to do this for me (I secretly yearned to not only be with a believer but to be with a passionate lover of God). He told me that he could never fake believing in something he didn’t or lie about it.
That night, I walked away still in doubt, and it took me some time to realize that he was for real. It brings tears to my eyes to think about that experience because I feel like the one that went through the real faith transformation was me. I doubted that God had the power to change someone and bring him closer to Him. I doubted that Pedro would really come to have faith in Jesus Christ. When Pedro asked me to have faith in him, he was asking me to have faith in his transformation. This was a challenge for me but ultimately a wake-up call. Where was MY faith? Was it possible that God had brought me into Pedro’s life to share about Christ and I failed to do my job? At that point, I didn’t know about our future together, I just knew that our journey had gone to a whole new level. It became a challenge but exciting because I was getting to see someone I cared about also fall in love with Jesus.
The day that he publicly confessed his faith in God, he also publicly confessed his love for me and thanked me for having faith in him. My love story really began a long time ago when I didn’t settle for the convenient guy or the half-right guy, but when I put my hope in God knowing that He fulfills His promises. He didn’t bring him the way I would have ever imagined but I am thankful because it is evidence that God is always at work in us.
Now and then when I call my mother, I can hear her crying on the phone as she expresses her happiness and joy that God has blessed me with a wonderful husband and a relationship that honors God with respect, love and a strong foundation. This brings joy to my heart because it confirms that hoping in God is not futile or in vain. God not only brought me a partner but He broke chains, He brought me someone better than I could have imagined for myself and I know that I am moving forward in a relationship that God ordained for me, never mirrored by anyone else before.
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