Dear Prayer/Fasters,

 

Greetings from one of your answered prayers!  I’m Heidi’s (one of the organizers of this email list) husband, and I’m thrilled that you’ve prayed for me for so long when you didn’t even know my name.  I realize from personal experience that it can sometimes be a long road to see prayer answered, so thanks for sticking by me.  Please keep praying for God to bring grown men like me into the Kingdom.

 

Your fearless leaders thought my story might add some encouragement to your efforts, so here I write.  God has pursued me patiently and persistently as I’ve stumbled towards Him in preparation for his most precious gift to me (after Christ):  Heidi.  Growing up in a non-church-going family, I didn’t seem right to me that I should be Christian just because I grew up in a Christian family in Raleigh, NC.  Although I read the Bible on my own as a young teenager, I explored a number of other faiths before I was truly ready to accept Jesus.   Through friends, girlfriends, and my own analytical, intellectual curiosity, I “tried on” Judaism, Islam (although only academically), Hinduism, Unitarianism, Buddhism, and Episcopalianism before being led to the Anglican (orthodox) church. At 34–a few months after taking an Alpha course–I had an overwhelming moment of communion with God while praying one night during a company fishing trip.  The Holy Spirit brought my head and heart together to “understand” (in a way that’s beyond words) God’s sacrifice, atonement, mercy, and grace through Jesus Christ.  I’ve been working to follow the Lord ever since.

 

So what does this have to do with Heidi and getting hitched?  Looking back, I’ve always had a reverence for marriage, felt called to it (although it never seemed to come), and thought of it as a “once and only” deal in this life.  Coming to Christ and then pursuing Christianity more deeply only heightened all those feeling–and put them in the proper perspective.  In God’s perfect timing, Heidi and I would not have been ready for each other if we had met four or five years earlier.  I would not have been a committed believer, and therefore wouldn’t have made the “ultimate cut” in Heidi’s book.  Heidi might have seemed too “religiously rigid” to me before I accepted Christ.  Some of my deepest prayers (where I’ve felt closest to God) involved weeping for joy while giving thanksgiving for meeting Heidi, praying that God would draw us together in marriage, and asking that He give me the strength to hold her “with an open hand” if marriage wasn’t His will for us.  I know Heidi had similar prayers for me.  It’s an understatement to say that I’m ecstatic it all worked out!  Now Heidi and I can pursue walking and growing together in Christ.

 

Yes, your prayer efforts take serious perseverance.  But it is possible for grown men to come to Christ through circuitous (and prayer-powered) paths.  And it is possible for Christian women to marry these “new” Christian men.  Thanks again and keep on praying.  Solo Deo gloria.