When I was a senior in H.S. I made this cute little necklace with a chain of braided hemp and a little tiny bottle with a cork that hung like a charm from the center. It was one of those choker style ones that are fastened snug around your neck so the little bottle was always visible and people asked me what was inside of it all the time. After it was completed it took me several days to figure out what I wanted to put inside! Finally I decided, I cut out a tiny little piece of paper out of some really pretty paper that I had and gave it to my boyfriend. I told him to write something on it and that I would put it in the little bottle, glue it closed and not open it for a year or until he told me I could! Basically I passed on the burden of filling it to someone else!! lol...
Anyways, he thought about it for a few days (this was about 2 months after we had started dating) and then wrote his little note and rolled it up and I didn’t look as we glued it inside of the little bottle for safekeeping. Now, I’m not going to tell you what was on the note until a little later, but I want you to think about this. Jason, my husband, is a Brother in Christ, and was back then when I first met him. I, however, hadn’t found Jesus yet. I knew who God was and knew a little about the man Jesus, but hadn’t committed my life to him as my savior yet. I had never been invited to Awana or another church group before I met Jason, so all I knew about Jesus was just words in this big huge book “The Bible” and that my boyfriend, Jason, was a Christian and believed in this man Jesus.
When Jason, my husband, wrote this note I had still not decided that Jesus was my savior. Looking back, I now know that when I asked him to write it he went home and prayed really hard about it. He wanted to see God find a way into my heart and he asked God if I was going to be the girl that would marry him someday! God answered his prayers with confidence about both requests so he knew exactly what to write on my little slip of paper.
During these days in my life I was having a really tough time dealing with some problems in my life and I was really confused and even scared. I also felt like something important was missing in my life. Jason asked me, one evening that I was particularly confused and upset, if I wanted to know Jesus as my savior. I had finally decided to make the choice and I wanted so much to know that God was looking out for me and I wanted to ask Jesus into my heart! It was during this time, just a few months after he wrote the little note for my bottle, that he led me to Jesus by taking me through the prayer of salvation.
I now had Jesus in my life, and I was trying my best to learn everything that I could about Him. The most important thing was I know knew that I wasn’t alone and that God was there to listen to me about my concerns and fears and hopes and dreams. I started going to church every Sunday with Jason and his family and that helped me to find out more about Jesus and how He could be in my life every day. I even started going to that churches Youth Group and since I was still in High School I was officially still "cool" in the younger kid’s eyes and I helped them to be strong and learn about keeping Jesus in their lives! About 6 months later after graduating from High School, I became a Nanny for a family that I knew. Right after I returned home from a trip with that family to San Diego’s Coronado , Jason wanted to spend time with me.
I mean that evening that we flew back into town! Jason asked me to go have dinner with him. He took us to a park that we had gone to several times before. It was really cool with these long cement slides that curved down the hillside. You could slide down them on cardboard boxes or waxed paper and go really fast, there were two of them so you could even race a friend! We had come there quite a few times with our friends to play on those slides..... I thought that he was just bringing me there to work up an appetite for dinner but then I started getting this feeling down in my stomach that something was different about that day.... Hmmmmm..... At the bottom of the hill with the two slides there is a HUGE old Oak tree with some really cool climbing branches. We walked down there and sat down and he told me to open my bottle! I was kind of wondering what the heck he was talking about, but I took off my necklace anyways and pulled the cork out and then managed to get the tiny little piece of paper out.....
And do you know what it said?? It said "Will you Marry Me? Love, Jason!" While I had been unrolling the paper, Jason got down on one knee and pulled out a little box and opened it. Ahhh, I know it’s a really cute story and I treasure having it. I was really young back then and this was pretty much the ULTIMATE in my eyes!
But, the reason that I thought that this story would be a good thing to share with you, was not because it’s a cute mushy girl story, but because I think that it is an ultimate example of a young persons Faith in God. That young person being Jason. He chose to have the eyes and heart of Jesus and not judge me because I wasn’t a Christian, in that he chose to try to help me instead of push me away because I wasn’t like him. He knew part of Gods plan even before I was saved, because he was a man of God and kept Jesus close to his heart, he knew that Jesus would help him bring me to my Faith and that someday he would be able to marry me. (He knew that he couldn’t marry me until I was a Christian) He had prayed about it constantly before and after he had wrote my little note, he had the strength to follow Jesus’ plan for his life, he had the Faith to write that little note even before I had found Christ, he had the wisdom to seek God’s word and pray every day for my salvation, he had the Love of Jesus in his heart for me and wanted more than anything to be able to bring Jesus into my heart too.
He kept and still keeps Jesus close to his heart and because of that he knows that Jesus was there and will always be there to help him through life’s challenges, adventures, and in doing God’s will in his life. Really it’s a story about two peoples journey to and through Faith. Finding Faith in Jesus and then finding your devotion to it. Ever since that night that Jason led me to Christ, I have spent my life trying to pursue Jesus’ plan for me and my family. I know that I will never be without, that Jesus has always and will always take care of my family and me.
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