A God Moment – Part 1

I've had some big God moments in my life, like when my kids were born and when my husband Tom died and events that happened on my many trips to Romania. All those events changed my life dramatically.

Another big God moment for me is a date my husband took me on when I was 28 years old.

I was married right out of high school. I turned 18 in July and married Tom in September. Sixteen months later I gave birth to our first child, Matthew. When I turned 28 we had four children (one was a newborn), we were building a new house, and my husband had a new, demanding full-time job starting our business as a non-foods broker. It was, to say the least, a stressful year.

One afternoon my husband called and said, “I think we need to go out together on a date. Get a babysitter.” He was an optimist to think I could find a sitter for four kids including a newborn on such short notice but it happened. I looked forward to that date all day.

By the time he got home and we got ready I was almost in tears because so many things had gone wrong that day, actually that week and even that month! Everything seemed to be building up inside of me.  I don’t remember what those things were and it really doesn’t matter. I just knew that I could not deal with one more thing!

We kissed the kids goodbye and got into the car. Tom started to pull out of the driveway and all of a sudden the dam burst and I began crying so hard I couldn’t even talk! He kept asking me, “What’s the matter?”, “Are you OK?”, and I kept saying, “I don’t know!”

He pulled the car back into the driveway where we sat…and talked…and prayed…and laughed…for four solid hours! We were parked in our own driveway, paying a babysitter to watch our kids inside our house. She kept peeking out the window to see what was going on.

In those four hours Tom talked me through a lot of things. One of the most important was that I didn’t really know who I was in Christ. Was I really saved at age 7 and did I even know what that meant at that age? How could I be a good Christian mom to four kids and not know these things?

And why was I so unhappy with all that I was doing at our church? I had done everything there was to do. I was a deacon’s wife, I sang in the choir, and taught Sunday school, Pioneer girls and vacation Bible school. I worked in the kitchen organizing all the banquets and weddings, making wedding cakes, and all that stuff! So…why was I so unhappy? Deep down in my gut unhappy? I couldn’t understand it, but thank the Lord, Tom could.

(To be continued.)