Eyes Wide Open

A few weeks ago, I was engaged to be Steve’s wife. He asked me to marry him after six short weeks of knowing each other. He swept me off my feet and I fell head over heels in love with him. But it wasn’t God’s plan for us to be married with me as a Christ follower and him not. Steve does not have a relationship with God. He does not thank God for the good in his life or honor Him. He feels uncomfortable in church. I do not. I have nothing but good feelings for the church: the people, the Spirit, the truth spoken by our pastor, the worship that I’ve been blessed with helping to lead.

Things started going wrong for me and Steve soon after he set a date for us to be married four months after meeting. I couldn’t go through with it. Everyone in my life--friends, family and longtime acquaintances, with two exceptions--were dead-set against it. I know he wanted to marry so soon because he wanted to consummate our relationship. When he didn’t get it from me, he began his own private search for a woman to satisfy his physical desires. But I didn’t know it at the time. All I knew was that he started treating me differently. He was more distant and stopped pursuing me. I found out two months later by installing Web Watcher on a community computer to which we both had access. God orchestrated events to enable me to find out, and I still thank and praise Him for it.

I drove to Phoenix area earlier this month to visit Steve during a job he was working there. We were to spend nine days together. On the way there, my friend Renee and I prayed together and discussed Scriptures and what God was doing in our lives. (Renee needed a ride to Arizona.) As we talked, I sensed God telling me to look in Steve’s camera bag. So the next evening after Steve went to work, I looked in his camera bag and found a Mary Kay business card from a woman in Michigan, where Steve had been working two weeks prior. I found her on Facebook and she resembled Miss Piggy. I sincerely couldn’t believe Steve would want to be intimate with her. Then again, the mother of his child has a similar appearance, only 10 years younger.

The next day was Easter. I went to Word of Grace Church in Buckeye, which just so happened (yeah right) to be the home church of the people from whom we rented a room. God at work again!

My time at Word of Grace was unbelievable. God blessed me there so much, touching my spirit and bringing me to many tears and much nasal congestion. I sat two seats from a man named Peter who showed concern. I explained that my fiance was not a Christ-follower and that he chose not to attend church with me. Peter strongly advised me not to marry Steve. He explained how, as a single father of two, he married Miss Hawaii. His second wife worshipped many gods. He said they only had one happy day in their marriage together and that it cost him everything. He even attributed the suicide of his 26-year-old son to the marriage.

I’ll never forget when Peter stood astride a basketball court line and said, “You can’t have one foot on one side and one foot on the other. You’ve got to have both feet on one side. Which side is it going to be? The left side or the right?” Through sobs I choked out, “The right.” He urged me to pack up and leave for home that very day. I didn’t.

I stayed that whole week, filling my days with acts of love for my then-fiance. Shopping, cooking, cleaning, sewing, laundry--but also quiet times with God. I ran on dirt roads in the dry desert. Each time my feet hit the ground, I’d hear this great crunching sound. God spoke to me there in my surroundings. A creek bed I ran in transitioned from a narrow passage to wide. “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:13, 14)

One morning, God also showed me Deuteronomy 30:11-19. “Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. … See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. … Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life…” The next day I read the passage to my roommate Elaine through tears after explaining the whole situation to her. I now had an accountability sister in the desert.

A couple of days later, I stumbled upon the Web Watcher software. I swear this is not a paid endorsement. This program really did help me find out the truth. Again, God was at work in the situation because Steve’s personal laptop computer had crashed. If his laptop was working, I would never have been able to install Web Watcher, as he kept his laptop under strict password protection. He was using Elaine and Jake’s desktop computer.

Twenty-four hours after installing Web Watcher, I logged on to check where he had been and obtained his login keystrokes. He had been on a website called Hot or Not. I logged onto his account and saw his sent messages. He had tried to set up a rendezvous in south Illinois two weeks prior and elicited nude photos from another woman who turned him down. On Easter Sunday when I was at church, he sent Easter greetings to more than 30 women across the country. My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. I went out to the living room and asked Elaine to look at what I’d found. I asked her if I was having a bad dream. She said, “No, honey, this is really happening.”

I packed up my car that night, showered, and slept three hours. I asked God to help me tell Steve and to be there in our midst. When Steve came home from working the night shift, I led him into the bedroom and told him everything, short and sweet. He looked at my bare ring finger. He looked into my eyes for several minutes and gently caressed my chin with his thumb. We embraced tightly for several minutes. Then it was time for me to go. My last words to him were: “If you ever give your life to Jesus, look me up.”

I still believe that if Steve does enter into a relationship with Christ, he will be made a new creation. I would be able to trust him…especially if he worked and lived in the same town year-round. But I can’t count on that happening. Steve has free will to choose Christ--or not. Just like me. I’m glad I chose Life.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10)

“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” (John 14:6)