pondered in my heart

i actually wrote this post back in february of 2010
so it's over a year old


but it just hit me that i'd never shared this part of our story with you
so here it is :-)

And Mary kept all these things…and pondered them in her heart.

I must have read those words a million times.

And found a startling understanding of them just a couple of months ago.

We had our annual women’s retreat (which I love) in which we played icebreaker
games (which I HATE). The first “game” was to find people we didn’t know and
make an “appointment” to have a quick chat with them. Total time for the game
was about 20 minutes, and we had to find 12 people.

Torture.

As SOON as we were ‘released’ to find our people, I felt a hand on my arm. It
was a woman I knew by sight and her words to me were “I’ve known Anthony
since he was tiny; we need to talk.”

Gulp.

Anthony, you see, grew up here in Nashville, and is a ‘favored son’ of this
congregation. So I was a bit intimidated.

When it came time for me to meet with her, she told me an amazing story.

You see, about 3 years ago it came out in the small group that I was a member
of and loved deeply that two of the people in that group, both married, had been
having an affair with each other for the previous 2 years. We were devastated.
And it didn’t end there. Over the next few months we all felt under attack as
more and more things came out into the open: mostly sexual sins, and none of
them good news.

I was the only single member of that group.

I swore off relationships. I had purposefully surrounded myself with people
who were in strong marriages, who were Christ-focused…who had everything I
desired for myself.

If they could fail so miserably…who was I to think my own marriage would be any
different?

I went through a very dark period of about a year before I began to see the
results—good results—of all this darkness in our group coming to light. I
watched as couple after couple began rewriting their love story. And I stood
amazed and began realizing that God can heal even what we break badly.

A few months later, Anthony and I started dating.

Anyway, back to the story the woman told me.

She has a son that was in the youth group—he was a senior that year (2007).
I know him by sight and occasional hello as well—I work with the middle
schoolers, so I didn’t have a whole lot of interaction with him.

Here’s what she told me:

“Boyd overheard you a few years back saying that you were planning to start the
adoption process within a few years and become a single mother. Is that right?”

I affirmed that indeed that had been my plan. She went on

“He came home and told me about it, and he made a commitment that day to
begin praying for you—that you would reconsider and that you would meet the
man God wanted you to marry…and that you would be open to love.”

Tears were welling up in my eyes at this point.

“He’s never stopped praying for you. And he was so thrilled when you and
Anthony started dating. He feels like he may have had a little hand in that…”

Wow.

It took a few moments to sink in.
In one of my darkest moments, there was a teenage boy that I barely knew
Who barely knew himself what “love” meant
And he was praying that I would find it.

Definitely a treasure that I have kept, and ponder in my heart.