Chapter 222: An Unlikely Romance

So, I didn't mention it in the first chapter but I guess there's no getting around it here. That first night when Derek picked us up from the airstrip and brought us back to our little cobra-infested, thank you Stephen Somers abode, something happened that has never happened to me before. I heard from the Lord. Now, you are probably thinking, "This chick's gonna be a missionary & she's never heard from

the Lord? uh-oh..."  Well, this was different.

I tossed & turned that night and really felt like God was impressing something on my heart but I didn't know what. Finally, I knelt on the side of the bed and asked Him to reveal to me whatever it was He was trying to tell me. And then & there, the declaration was entered into my brain that "This is your husband." I know- it's wild. God's never spoken to me like that before or since then, unfortunately. I wrestled with Him for quite some time over this for a number of reasons, but mainly 1) I was not attracted to Derek at the time (unfortunately), 2) I did not come to Belize to think about boys, and 3) I could not remember his name.

So, I listed out all my reasons {which God didn't pay much attention to}, fell asleep at the foot of the bed, tried my hardest to forget the incident the rest of the summer, and moved on. Until that last fateful day when Derek had to pipe up and ask if he could write me when I went home. That first night flooded back to my memory and I felt like it would be disobedience if I did not agree to enter into a writing relationship with him.

And so, we began writing. And I do mean writing, as in mostly snail mail. Remember, this was pre-Skype and he was 13 miles from the nearest internet cafe! Later on, he did end up getting Internet, which was quite helpful. But for a while there, we just wrote in journals and would mail them back and forth to each other every few months since it took 10-14 days for a letter to get there anyway. At the time it was quite torturous, but it is neat to look back on those records and see the fingerprints of God weaving our story along.

And it truly was God writing our story! That first year that we wrote letters we saw each other one time...it was over a weekend as Derek was flying through to visit his home church and join the missions agency. And it was less than 48hrs that we spent together. I can't tell you how many prayers were offered up on my end beforehand that "God, if he is truly supposed to be my husband, please let me fall head over heels for him..." And guess what? Over 48hrs, I did! See? smitten...

I wish I could say it was all roses after that, but anyone who has been in a long-distance relationship for any length of time knows that there is an element of faith that just keeps you going or directs your path elsewhere. Thankfully, God only strengthened our relationship from there on out. I'll share one incident of how he did this with me, and then we'll close this chapter out as this post is getting quite lengthy.

One morning during my quiet time with the Lord, I was doubting {yet again} if this relationship was really meant to be. In reading Psalm 32:8 (which says, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you...") I repented, and asked God, "If this truly is your will, please just give me a concrete sign that indeed shows me that this is "the way" so that I never doubt your will for our relationship again..." So, I decided to look up in the original Hebrew what that word "the way" in Ps 32:8 actually means. Well, do you know what the Hebrew word for "the way" is? DEREK. No lie. Spelled exactly that way- who knew his name was even Hebrew? More specifically it means, "way, path, route, road, journey, conduct, way of life" and the verb form of the word means "to lead, or to guide". {Sigh}.

So, I just resigned after that to love this man whom God had already caused me to love anyway for the rest of my life. We still had to wait a while and keep writing letters and doing the bi-annual visit thing. Three years total we did it (and saw each other less than a month's time combined throughout all that!) before we were finally able to get married. The plan was to wed, hurry through school, and then get back on the mission field.

Little did we know what that next chapter of God's Story would hold for us...