This is my story.

And I feel like God wants me to share it.

For me its a personal ‘God story’  that only about 5 people know about.

I shared it with only a few people, because back then, I had no confidence in what I believed, in fact I didn’t even really know what I believed. I believed in God but I didn’t really know how I felt about him or how he felt about me. Most times I felt pretty sure that he was totally annoyed at my inability to be a good christian.

I knew that if I shared this experience with the wrong person they would give me 500 reasons why it wasn’t legit and I knew my faith was too weak to stand through someone else’s doubts.

This was my story, this was a moment in my life that God came through in a way that was powerful to me. I clung to this moment and it got me through hard times, even now when God seems far away he reminds me of that moment when I realized for the first time how incredibly much he cares about me.

He loves me for me! He doesn’t just love me when I get it right, he’s not constantly rolling his eyes wondering if I’m ever going to stop screwing up, he just simply loves me, because I’m me and he created me in his own image.

That’s how he feels about you too.

Let’s Back Up A Bit.

When we got engaged our plans were to get married amish. We had both heard strong statements such as ‘leaving the amish is a ticket straight to hell’ or ‘people who leave are breaking a promise they made to God’ or ‘ people who leave are never satisfied, they just keep going farther and farther because they lost their peace when they left the amish church.’

I’m not one to make decisions lightly, especially big decisions like this. I even made up my mind that I don’t know if I agree with those statements but hey its better to be safe then sorry. Besides leaving would cause a whole mess of drama and I hate confrontation so why not just keep the peace?

(Which by the way, we are called to be peacemakers not peacekeepers. This subject could be a whole other blog. 🙂 )

However, God persisted.

No matter how much I tried to convince myself that I would stay amish, I never found peace with that decision. For awhile I thought I accomplished this goal of being satisfied where I was…

But then we got engaged.

It suddenly kind of hit me that I was committing to something that I had absolutely no desire to do. I felt forced to do something that didn’t even make sense to me.

I prayed but found no answers or peace.

Then one Sunday in church (amish church) the preacher was preaching on the story of Issac and Rebecca and how the servant prayed by the well, he asked very specific things from God and do you know what happened?

God gave him exactly what he asked for!

I was sitting there and suddenly realized: This might have happened years and years ago, but if God answered prayers like that then, why wouldn’t he still answer them like that today?

So for the next 9 months I prayed.

I prayed that if God was ok with me leaving the amish church, then he would send rain on our wedding day, and if it didn’t rain then that meant it wasn’t ok.

Seek And You Will Find.

Matthew 7:7. This was the verse that kept me going. Every time I felt like I was never going to understand who God is or what he really expects of me, I would come back to the promise in this verse.

Seek and you will find.

So I kept seeking and I believed the promise that it would pay off and I would find the truth.

It did.

I found the truth.

In case you wondering… the things I mentioned earlier that people say about leaving…

They’re lies.

There is absolutely no truth in them. They are lies planted by the devil to keep people from following Jesus, to keep people from stepping into whatever God has for them.

Did It Rain?

YES!

It rained.

10 days before our wedding I was checking the weather.

Sunny.

They said it was going to be sunny. Not a cloud in sight.

It was the weirdest thing though. It didn’t matter how much the weather guy proclaimed that it would be sunny, I knew it was going to rain. Somehow I just knew it would.

9 days before the weather said: Sunny.

8 days before: Sunny.

7 days before, 6 days before, Sunny.

Yet, I still knew it was going to rain.

Finally 2 days before, the weather guys finally caught on that it might not be sunny. 🙂

Cloudy, they decided. It would be cloudy but no rain.

I still knew it was going to rain.

Then it was our wedding day and it was cloudy.

Then the sun came out.

Then…

We were sitting in the service and I looked out the window…

It was raining.

In that moment I knew, like never before, that God cares.

About me.

He loves me enough to answer a prayer that was prayed with very little faith. He loves me enough to reach out through the fog of varying opinions and show me his heart.

I was overwhelmed with a sudden understanding of just how deeply he cares for me on a personal level.

In that moment the direction of my life was forever changed because for the first time, ever I understood just how loved I am.

He cares about you just as much.

Whatever your battle is, don’t give up because he promised: ‘If you seek, you will find, and if you ask, it will be given.’