Badly Needed In The Body of Christ – A Picture of a Good Marriage 💍

07/21/2024 A Godly Marriage: That for which we hope and strive, for which we’ve laid down our lives, and for that which we still make the decisions that we do! ~R&J

I have reflected for a while, maybe for almost 2 decades, what it is that Jesus meant when he said “FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND HIS MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH” (Matthew 19:5). The Gideon bible says, “..man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife”… I like that! This thought puts the fear of God in me all over again, because I’ve always admired the idea of husband and wife in God’s way. In all my endeavors to pray for my soul in Jesus, so that I can be a good wife, at this time, I have a few thoughts I reflected on that are worth sharing!

Union in Christ – I got born again in 2005, and had to find a grip on the reality of Christ, and what He would want for me in this world, for my own soul. When I met my 2007 fiancee at UNC Pembroke, I had already been seeing a godly Christian guy, and was not aware that anything else would have come about for me in marriage. In a small kind of way, we had proposed or at least talked about the idea of marriage. Because of Jesus’ people having led me to the Lord, and it been defined so drastically for me (for one reason or another) in college, I saw the gospel message presented to me and wrapped in a package that was defined as what I would truly imagine Jesus would like to see in a marriage. (The people that led me to the Lord got persecuted away from the school, and that’s a fascinating story, too!). So, when the fiancee at the previous time had told me that God shared with him that he wasn’t the one, I felt like a blow to my system, but I had already received a prophetic word to go to UNCP (University of North Carolina at Pembroke), which meant leaving the college in Ga, and coming back to NC, specifically to go to UNC at Pembroke. The earlier fiancee said “I’m not prophesying to you or anything, but you’re probably going to meet a guy at this school you’re about to go to”, so I was totally stunned for a week, maybe a little sad too, and for that season, but in 2 weeks, I would be moving into UNC Pembroke. I received another prophetic word within 2 days of him saying that, and tested it, and could not “unhear it”, that I was about to endeavor on the “Opportunity of a lifetime”. So here I was, single again, and crazy for Jesus, and knew that whatever was ahead, I had reason to fear God.

When I got to the college, I had my eye on guys, because I had always had a tendency for that prior to marriage, and the fiancee before had kept my eye from wondering. Then I would go to the Christian meetings on campus, Baptist Student Union, and a pentecostal type meeting with Nathaniel C**, and I cannot remember what the name of that group was, predominantly black, but man they had some good meetings! I praised the Lord Jesus with whoever I got a chance to meet. Since everyone I spoke to had to lend an ear to me talking about Jesus, I had made a few girlfriends from the dorm, very few, but at least 2 girl friends. Then I was leaving a pizza party at the baptist student union, I took a friend to, and as we were walking back, there was a service in the middle of the yard, where people were ripping phonebooks and talking about their testimonies in the Lord. See picture! This is not them exactly, but I do believe it was people from this “Power Group”!

This was strange to me, and I could see them in their tight shirts and defined muscles from a long ways off, and hear praise music! Then I hear a voice from like a football field’s length away, and I’m not sure how I only hear his voice, but I can remember thinking about how odd, this one guy, with his hands raised to the sky, hollering but not boistrously, in genuine praise to Jesus, in the middle of the campus yard.

From then on, I stalked John B*****, and when I heard he was a 5th year senior, and I was a senior, (I was convinced he was younger than me like maybe 17 or 18, because he looked young), and I was 21. But then he was a male about the same age, single, aflame for God only, and having been alienated for Jesus’ sake, and praying for a wife for at least 4 years! I was sold! We had to hammer out things for a few weeks, but we were connected instantly. What a wild thing, and how happy we were when we met! I literally “fell into his lap”.

How blessed it is to have been guided by God, in something I could not ever foresee or would have even been possible on this earth for about the first 18 years of living. I know of dozens of some good marriages, and everyone’s story is not the same as mine, but my story and John’s story has cost such a great price, that I would be more than a fool not to share it.

We have not attained to the fullness of Christ until we get to heaven, but one thing I know, that God did ordain me to be with John and so we will keep chipping away until we have met that “becoming one flesh” thing more perfectly ;).

The only thing left to say for this blog, is that a good marriage will be founded on an even better foundation. (1 Corinthians 3:11)