Chris & Christy

[Journal Entry 4-27-2010]

“Tonight Chris handed me a stack of papers and asked if I was ready to hear the rest of the story.

I had no idea.

I’m pretty sure I don’t deserve a man with that kind of faith and determination and selflessness. But… I don’t deserve anything You give me, and yet You want me to accept it as an expression of Your love and use it for Your glory.

I feel pretty loved.”

I had shrugged, nodded, sipped my Chai and started reading.

Dec 1st, 2009

Dear future wife,

Last night while having my quiet time with God before going to bed I felt led to start something odd. I am going to be praying for you for an hour a day for the next 25 days. I have no clue as to how or why 25 days but it just seems God wants me to put some intense effort into praying. Can’t wait to see what happens.

Chris

I was speechless. It had only been a week since I had told him I was willing for our relationship to move forward. I was surprised that he was already handing me letters addressed to his future wife. Presumptuous?

This is an excerpt from the Dec 12th letter.

“I pray that I would completely leave the picture, that Christ would send His spirit and fill me even more, that I would die so that Christ would take over, knowing that you are going to be the type of person that will only love a man who himself is a clear picture of Christ. I pray for you that you would do the same.”

I’m pretty sure my heart stopped for a couple seconds when I got to Dec 18th and read:

Dear Christy,

I am writing this in faith that God will soon give you to me as my wife. I have gone through a tremendous journey the past few days. A journey I would not trade for the world. I don’t know you very well right now but I do know you are a remarkable woman who loves the Lord with her whole heart, mind, and soul. I have asked God that he would work in your heart so that our paths in life would merge and we would walk the rest of the way side by side as best friends who’s only desire is to serve and bring glory to God by any means He deems fit. Writing this letter is a huge step of faith for me. I have only recently started this deeper life of bold prayers to God. My prayers are born out of my asking Him to lead me in the prayers He wants me to pray. I am very exited and can’t wait for the day I can give this letter to you.

Boldly asking that God bestow His favor on me by letting you eventually be my wife,

Chris

Ummm. WHAT IN THE WORLD??? This letter was written a whole 4 months before I gave him any indication that I would even consider marrying him. 3 months before I was even willing to think about marriage at all. The audacity of this man. The faith…

Dec 22nd, 2009

Dear Christy,

I had a great hour of prayer, especially the last half hour when God brought even more scripture to me encouraging me that He will answer my prayers. I got done with prayer and you were on google chat. We talked about the struggles you have been having the last week or so. I believe they are caused by God working in your heart due to my prayers. I never meant to cause you pain or struggle and would gladly let you off the hook but I believe God is doing something much bigger. I know exactly what you are not surrendered to but only God can open your eyes and show you … Who knows, you still might get to Africa yet.

That was in response to the chat I posted a part of in the What Do You Fear, My Lady? post. I actually laughed out loud a couple times, through my tears, as I read his letters and remembered the conversations and realized how much more was going on than I knew at the time and remembered my confusion that God would tell this man my secrets when I knew so little of him. Now I knew why.

The letters continued on, past Dec 25th, when his “Prayer Project” ended and clear through April 20th, when I’d finally said yes. Here are a few more excerpts.

Dec 31st

Had a wonderful chat with you. He is working so much in your life. I am afraid my prayers have caused you pain in that at the moment marriage seems like the worst possible thing to you. I wish I could just out and tell you what is going on, but I cant… You don’t know it yet, but all the adventure, all the romance, and all the joy of serving God that you desire will be best brought to you by marriage. I just wish it was to a better man than me.

Jan 11th

I heard your mom say your middle name on New Years. Laurel. I find it ironic. A laurel is a wreath or crown bestowed on an athlete or warrior as a token of favor.  My middle name is Stephen. Stephen means crowned one. One of my prayers has been that God would show me his favor by giving me a wife because “he who finds a wife obtains the favor of the Lord”. Proverbs also says a virtuous woman is a crown to her husband. I hope I’m not making to much of this, but I think it’s really awesome.

Feb 15th

My prayers for you continue. At the same time I pray even more for myself. That I would seek God above all… If I can somehow keep Christ first and abide in Him you will eventually come and help me delve these truths deeper. I see small things happen and wonder if you aren’t trying to give me signals, yet at the same time you still talk about marriage as if its something you would rather avoid, even though you are slowly becoming more accustomed to the idea. I will continue to pray more. I think its just a matter of time.

March 15th

Another month. We have seriously gotten to know each other so much better. I praise God for you so much. Right now in my life, of a the people I know, you point me to God the most. I keep wanting to rush things but God is saying “Just hold your horses. I am working slowly but surely.” I can see his fingerprints everywhere in our relationship.

April 14th, 2010

Dear Christy,

This is what you wrote,

“Dear God,

You told me its what I need, the only way to fulfill some of my dreams, to trust you, and be ok with it. I am ok with it, ok? But you know how much I hate the limbo of waiting indefinitely, so as shocking as this may sound coming from me… would you please hurry up? Sincerely, me.”

Can’t tell you how much this filled me with joy. Your wait will not be long. Now I can move, now I can act, now I will be able to start giving everything I have been wanting to give.

Chris

What he quoted me saying here came originally from my journal. On a whim, I posted it as my google chat status for all of 5 minutes before I decided it was too personal and took it down. He saw it. There were only a couple people who would understand what I was talking about. He knew.

This is from April 19th. The night before our little coffee shop talk.

My chest is tight and pounding. I am praying for peace and faith. Christy, I only want to help you achieve your dreams. The prayers I have been pouring forth all day, whenever found with a moments time, have been that this news would simply make you happy. I really, really do not want to create any stress or cause for more struggle in your life as you have already been going through so much. Rather I want you to embrace this as God working and answering your desires to move forward in your walk and a large step in the direction of your dreams of being able to serve Him answered. This step I know is of God, and I have prayed over it so earnestly… Christy, other  than my desire to know God more and please Him, my greatest desire has been to simply see you happy. This step, if you choose to take it, will allow me even more freedom and tools to help make you more happy and in seeing your joy I will be joyful too. Please, let me serve you, let me be God’s tool to help fulfill your dreams and desires, let me be the one that God uses to enable you to serve Him. Nothing in this world right now would make me happier.

The person who wants to be the best friend that is always there and will never leave,

Chris

And the last one:

April 20th, 2010

Dear Christy,

You said you want to move forward. I am a very very happy person tonight.

Chris

Written 4-20-11

A year ago this evening I was sitting in a coffee shop staring intently into my cup and saying absolutely nothing to the poor nervous man next to me. I was processing at such a deep level. Could this really be happening? To me?

A month ago I shared the story of that day a year ago and all that God was doing in me then. The subsequent days did not get any easier to handle. On Easter Sunday my wonderful and insightful brother Jonathan reminded me that as a woman God had created me with amazing abilities and talents but that I needed a strong support structure to be able to function at the full capacity God intended for me. He said he wouldn’t always be able to fill that role for me and I’d have to find someone else.

My struggle to define and accept my friendship with Chris was only accentuated by the judgemental spirit and snide comments of others. I almost dropped Chris all together a couple times simply because I didn’t want to loose standing friendships and trust over a guy who I wasn’t sure I wanted in my life in the first place. But God wouldn’t let me, and I knew He was using Chris for something bigger.

This guy was so good for me. Anyone who knew me well could see it. He knew how to make me hear truth, he knew how to make me happy. He was so much fun and I loved spending time with him. I loved how I always felt like I had seen God after I’d been around Him.

The whole time God was asking me to trust Him more deeply, to completely relinquish my grip on my plans for my life and let Him lead regardless of the destination. I was so afraid of being hurt again or hurting someone I loved, of letting someone close and then loosing them. At this point I wasn’t so much afraid of God asking me to get married as I was of allowing myself to want it and then it not happening the way I thought it would. I was afraid I would let my guard down and fall in love with Chris but that instead of it being God’s way of fulfilling the need He had finally convinced me was there, that He would use it as a lesson in letting go and dealing with pain and finding Him in loss. I wasn’t sure I could handle another one of those just yet.

April 19th I had a long conversation with my parents. I expressed how I saw things, saw Chris, and couldn’t believe this was happening. I told them what I was afraid of. My mom did lots of laughing at me. My Dad didn’t give as much direction as I’d hoped for. “You’re in a good place. Just wait and see what Chris does.” Great, thanks.

I went for a long walk and spilled all my thoughts to God. I finally collapsed on a picnic table and waited for Him to answer. “As long as you and Chris continue to point each other to Me, don’t be afraid of it or where it might go.” That was all I got from Him, but it was enough. I knew my God was trust worthy and would never give me more pain than necessary. I know my relationship with Chris was good, and that whatever God did with it, He would only make it better. I thought I was ready for whatever came next, but when it actually happened, when I was actually sitting in that coffee shop having that conversation it was still so much harder than I thought it would be.

I sat there completely numb, still staring into the chai I had hardly touched. My mind was racing, begging God for clarity, for words, for something. I knew I needed to say something to Chris before the silence stretched any longer. He finally summarized. “Christy, nothing would make me happier than to be able to do all that I can to encourage you, to point you to God, and to make you happy.” He was asking me to let him be the support God had told me I needed.

I finally found words. “I think… I think I’m ok with that.”

Chris grinned.

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

I’m so very thankful I’ve had that man in my life for the last year. I’m so thankful I took the step of faith and said yes.

Written 3-22-11

A year ago this evening I was terribly angry at a man named Chris Ong who had the audacity to suggest, quite innocently I’m sure,  that I might need a man in my life. I very rarely get angry at my friends, but he had broached a dangerous subject. I was having a hard enough time with the fact that he was my friend, and was also a guy. I didn’t have a problem with guy friends in general, but this one somehow seemed dangerous.He was getting too close.

I had gone through my stage of wanting a guy in my life, wanting love, wanting the white picket fence, but I was over it. I honestly didn’t want to get married. I was so happy with my life as it was, and so satisfied with my wonderful close friends, my brother, my family, and I didn’t want any of it to change. I also had dreams, grand dreams where God and I went out into the world all on our own and made a difference. I wanted to help orphans, lead girls retreats, counsel, minister, and be free to do all these things as much and as often as I wanted. Marriage, frankly, would get in the way. Marriage was accepting mediocrity, accepting normalcy, accepting the typical American lifestyle – raise a family, make meals, kiss the husband when he gets home from work, go to church twice a week, trying to be “good Christians” in a temporal world. I wanted to be as far from that life as possible. I wanted anything BUT normal. I wanted to see and know God in unheard of ways. And I wanted it it be just Him and me. I wasn’t gonna share Him with anyone. He was my Love and I didn’t need anything else.

I also seriously didn’t think any man could handle my intensity and emotions.There was no way one person would want to have to deal with all that the rest of their life. I totally wore myself out, and I didn’t want to do that to someone I loved. I dumped a bit on people I really trusted, my brother Jonathan got a lot of it, but never completely, never all the way. I was sure the only one who could take the “real me” with out running in terror was God.

Around the end of 2009 God began to challenge some of my thinking in these areas. I remember clearly when I felt Him asking me if I would trust Him enough to let Him have me get married. Not that it was gonna happen, just if I’d be ok with it. It took me a week to be able to say that I would still trust Him. I slowly realized that I was limiting God by holding such rigid views of a fulfilled life and of what He could do through people. He began to ask me to let Him show me that He was bigger.

Around this same time I was getting to know Chris better, and it amazed me how often our conversations would inadvertently end up on the same topics God was talking to me about. We had such good conversations about everything from abiding in Christ, asking God for big things, sibling relationships, and the character of God, to personal fears and dreams. One night in right before Christmas we had this conversation:
Chris: So what do you fear most?

“’What do you fear my lady?’

‘A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond beyond recall or desire.’”

me: I resemble that quote.

I was frustrated with how often God chose to speak to me through Chris but couldn’t deny that it was Him talking. The “cage” quote from The Lord of the Rings quickly became a theme with me, and God slowly convinced me that the cage I feared was of my own making and that as long as I followed Him He would never put me in a cage. Therefore whatever He asked of me, even marriage, could not possibly be a cage. I repeated this to myself over and over and over… and over and over. I know it sounds silly that this was so hard for me, but I had built a picture of Christ-likeness for myself, and was quite convinced it was the real thing. It took time to wipe away the lies and let God recreate the picture His way.

On that night a year ago, as I was talking through the confusion that was surfacing as God redefined His will for me, Chris got especially bold (I didn’t find out til much later how it was that he seemed to know the secrets of my heart and the exact thoughts I needed to hear.)

me: Oh, that was something else Mrs. Spray said when I was talking about Africa and Haiti. She looked right at me, after we’d been talking for about 10 minutes, and said “Hun, I don’t think you could handle that yet. It would be too much for you to carry.” (or something to that effect.)

me: can’t be worse than some of the things you’ve said before. Chris: Could be you will never have the strength alone but will need the help of another person to help share the burdens you want to carry and help with.

I don’t think either of us had any idea that exactly a year later would would have just celebrated our 7 month wedding anniversary.