My Love Affair With Jesus

Well, this is the month of Valentines, when we are bombarded with messages of love. So I wanted to try to tell you about my love affair with Jesus. Yes! I want to confess to you I've have been having a love affair! It's really not something that I was looking for—in fact, He pursued ME! I hadn't considered getting into a relationship at THAT point in my life. When I first saw Him I was only about twelve, sitting in a group with my friends. But, OH! You know, He was SO subtle. I really didn't realize what was happening until years into the relationship…at first I just enjoyed the awareness of his attention. And He'd show up at just the right times! It was nice to know that I had someone to fall back on when I was afraid, or lonely or life seemed too tough to handle alone. He seemed to always be ready to listen and just hold me. He was a perfect gentleman…not pushy at all! I knew He wanted to be friends and He told me a little bit about Himself…I often didn't understand WHAT He was sharing, but it made me feel so privileged just to have Him tell me about Himself since I was just this kid…actually I didn't want to get too involved with Him, at first, because as much as I was drawn to Him I was also sort of scared of Him! He was a very powerful Person!

After a few years I started to get involved in dating people my own age, and partying. I drank a lot with my friends and felt pretty ashamed by Sunday morning about such immature behavior, but I was just having so much fun living on the edge…it wasn't at all what my Mom had taught me, but my Dad did with his alcoholism…I guess I was in a lot of pain with him. First he was out to sea with the Navy 8 months of the year, and then when he was at home he didn't seem to notice me after the official greetings were over…those times were pretty confusing for me. He didn't seem to be aware of what we were involved in, or who our friends were….he had such messed up ideas about being a parent--just sort of' out of touch! I can remember him trying to teach my brother to box. My brother always ended up crying and my Dad would either feel bad or complain that my brother was a 'Mama's boy! I guess he really scared me. I felt like I didn't really know him. Anyway, the drinking helped me not feel the pain so much, but it made me feel so wasted and cheap since I would do things I wouldn't have done sober.

hen I felt hopeless about my life, I'd go see my old Friend and He would tell me about a better way to live and how much happier I'd be if I'd live like he lived. I knew that what He said was true….but I didn't seem to have the strength of character to follow through. Nobody in my life did. I got so discouraged always trying to live up to His standards, so I tried to break it off with Him when I got into a serious relationship with someone older and more mature. This guy treated me so good! He never bragged about the sex we had like younger guys did; he had a great job in the Navy with good pay and benefits, so there was a lot of security there! And he seemed to be intoxicated with ME !!!!!!!!! Well at least with the sex part! I was sure our love would grow into something more if we were married and had afamily…he didn't seem that interested in what was in my head or heart, except that I loved him! After checking out some old girlfriends he decided to ask me to marry him! I was so thrilled! He was going to make a respectable woman out of me…..and I was going to help him connect with me better, in other ways! You know, cause he just didn't know how to, yet…after all, no one had ever loved him like I did!

But then my life seemed to spin out of control. We had been married about a year and he just didn't seem to want to understand me! I felt so frustrated and hurt with his indifference toward me…toward my feelings. He said he liked who he was and had no intention of ever changing and if I didn't like it, too bad. I'd get really upset with him, but he'd always try to fix things with the warmth and closeness of sex---well, at least that felt better than his coldness! So I used to pretend that whatever my heart needed wasn't worth the arguing. Besides, I seemed to always be the one loosing my cool and acting like the jerk and having to apologize for such infantile behavior. I hoped that love would ease the pain…. You know? It was really strange trying to use sex to patch up all our differences.

During one particularly dismal time I decided to get in touch with my old Friend. I was so desperate that I invited Him to be in charge of my life….and WOW! was He happy about that. I couldn't imagine why? But He was so understanding, and wise….so comforting! Just being around Him made me feel safe…He wanted to know more and more about what I felt and thought. I wish I could explain the mystery about Him…I mean I felt like a new person with Him and it seemed like this intimacy helped me understand what He wanted to share about. He had such different ideas, and He began to give me the ability to really feel the power of His words…I felt so ALIVE with Him! Nothing about me seemed too troublesome or ugly! The more I was in His company, the more I never wanted to leave Him. His approach to life was so radically different! It was so refreshing and freeing! And then the greatest of surprises, He said HE would never leave me or forsake me and that He had a plan for ME that HE would work out in me to glorify God and fill the hole in soul forever! And he told me that he would live with me to help me live the way I was originally designed to live! I knew He was right! That IF I was going to really be ALIVE inside and out I would need to let him change me Himself and that would be a full time job…He even gave me a book with everything in it that we had been talking about! He told me to watch for others that had also met him along the way and to make sure that I spent time with them! He said that He had given each of us gifts to share with one another….and that in a very mysterious way His power was released in the lives of others when we gathered together and talked with Him. I really thought that having Him with me would be like having a fairy god mother, that if I just wished for something hard enough it would happen, only I had exchanged wishing for hoping and praying. Of course it didn't happen that way….I kept meeting others who claimed to know Him and they kept telling me to just not give up believing that He would bring joy, prosperity, success, and a happily ever after ending to my life.

Well, I knew that! I had plenty of joy and excitement….we were living in Spain , I was having my first baby, we traveled, and skied, and played all over Europe . My circumstances WERE great, but my relationship with my husband was full of sadness. I remember sitting on a windowsill in a hotel in Switzerland listening to a different voice that kept offering to give me peace, freedom from the struggle and pain, if I would just jump. Oh, how tempting it seemed! All this heartache and confusion gone…at least I asked my friend if I couldn't just give up. He said to trust Him—that this was not what He had planned for me. What a contrast in their voices….one promised relief and nothingness, the other offered a love so profound, to be with me always and to reveal the God of the universe – great and hidden things which I did not know—I chose life LIFE with Him.

What I didn't know then, was just how dark my thinking still was. Friends kept telling me that as I did things God's way life would get increasingly better with my husband. But the opposite seemed to be true. While he did admire the kind of mother, cook, and homemaker I was he jeered at my attempts to follow the counsel of my Friend and to share it with others He loved to show me off and to teach me to do all the sports he enjoyed. But was disappointed when I didn't excel, or my enthusiasm lagged. He even admired how trustworthy and loyal I was when there were so many military wives bailing out on their husbands and wiping them out financially while they were on deployments.

But he didn't seem to want to know how I had grown during our separations, or what I had been doing…he didn't care to meet new friends I'd made or get together with others except for parties. He felt safe with my commitment till death do us part….with my desire to do only good to him…but when I started to learn that some of the ways I thought I loved him were actually NOT good for either of us he became very distant toward me…But my Friend was true to His word and He filled my heart and head with such thrilling, life-sustaining truth and He began to change me into this new creature. And THEN He chose to work through me to reach the hearts of others who had been lost like I had been. I remember having to attend 'happy hours' where I would pray before we went for Him to help me to see just one person that needed Him and every time He would put that person in my path. After that I asked Him to help me see others with His eyes and to love them the way He did. Soon I was busy sharing His Good News with so many of the wives in the squadron that my husband was a bit embarrassed! After three years we were on the move—16 moves in all. But everywhere we went my friend went with me showing me His ways and bringing others to me who needed him so badly. He also brought those who were faithful to Him to share the light he had given them and to encourage me . We searched his words for the mysteries He promised to show us, found out more and more about Him, and gradually learned to trust Him in the situations of our lives. It is a hard journey…we never seem to get to the end of needing to learn more lessons, more trust, more truth that slams up against the dark corners of our thinking…my husband did not want to share this journey. He said he couldn't respect people who were so weak and needy. He wanted God to bless him and protect him, but he wanted to figure things out for himself and he certainly didn't want God or others meddling in his life. Gradually his heart became hardened toward me and through the years his human love dried up. The Living water was needed so badly and I tried to share all I had! My friend grieved with me as my husband refused His offer and mine for relationship. But He continued to bless me with three wonderful boys, ministry to others and a life that is rich and full. Borrowing from some of my favorite songs my heart can join them in singing that He is the lover of my soul and it's true He never let me go, He has taken me from the miry clay, set my feet upon the Rock on which I stand. He is my closest friend, He Is the air I breathe, He is my daily bread and yes, I'm desperate for Him!