My Testimony.

I come from a rare home. My parents are still married….to each other. Sure they have had their moments, but I always knew that they would stay together.

Knowing this, I grew up wanting to have the same love they had. I have dreamed of my Prince Charming for as long as I can remember. I just knew that I wasn’t complete until I found the man that I would spend my life with. Little did I know…..He was there from the time I was born. He was there before I was born (Jeremiah 1:5).

I fell “in love” for the first time when I was 16 years old. When I was 20, I was married for the first time. Not to my “first love”. It was an abusive union that left me broken and even more determined to find my “Prince Charming”. Now I had 2 children that needed a father in their home. If only I realized…there was already a Father in our home.

I jumped from relationship to relationship looking for my prince. With each relationship I started, I brought with me: my 2 children and a bag full of bruises and scars. I had been divorced for a mere 3 years when I had another child. This time I didn’t even bother with the marriage. It was just a piece of paper anyway…right?

Needless to say….that relationship ended and once again I was on the search for my prince. Would I ever find Him? Again I entered relationship after relationship just hoping that this one was the one.

And I found him. The one. I knew he had a drinking problem and I knew he wasn’t the most stable person, but I could help him. If I loved him enough, I could change him. He just needs someone to stand by him and care about him and love him. I will be that person! I was determined to make this marriage work. We even got married in a church, unlike my first marriage. We didn’t worship God or have a relationship with Him, but somehow getting married in the church was going to help this marriage be successful.

After 2 years of being cheated on and watching him drink our lives away, I decided that maybe my prince was a frog after all. So again, I was alone. At least it felt that way. Here I was…..30 years old and divorced twice. OUCH…it was painful to say and it was painful to think about. Again, my children had no father in their home. Again, I was going to change that.

I immediately became involved with another man. This time I knew he was a good man. How did I know? Because he had been in his current marriage for more than 12 years. And even though he didn’t love her anymore, he still stayed with her. What a guy, huh?…..This relationship, although short lived, would prove to be one of the most significant relationships in my life. It is the relationship that caused me to stop and think about what I was doing to my life and to the lives of my children and the end of this relationship would ultimately be the beginning of the most important relationship of my life.

It was December of 2001 when I finally met The One! He was perfect in every way. He accepted me for who I am. He didn’t have unrealistic expectations of me. He didn’t hurt me physically or mentally. This was a concept that I was completely unfamiliar with. Unconditional love! I had never felt it and I certainly had never shown it. Probably the closest I had ever come to experiencing it, was the love I had for my children. Yet, I realized that this new found Love was even greater than the love I had for them. Was that possible? Could someone really love me that much? It was hard to accept and I fought it with every ounce of my being. I couldn’t fathom this concept. I knew that I would NEVER be able to return this kind of Love. And I was certainly not worthy of this Love. This was the Love I had been searching for since I was a little girl. Here it was…at last! I was complete. And it felt incredible! He knew me better than I knew myself. He knew me before I was born (Jeremiah 1:5). He was there in the beginning (John 1:1) and He created me! He pieced me together and even numbered the hairs on my head (Matthew 10:30). And when my very existence was threatened…..He died for me. Now that is Love!

My Prince wasn’t to be found in the pages of a storybook. At least not one written by Disney. My Prince didn’t ride in on a white horse, He wasn’t that prideful. He chose to ride in on a donkey (John 12:14). However, I know that my Prince has a white horse (Revelation 6:2) and someday He will ride all of us, that choose to love Him, off into the sunset where we will live happily ever after.