So yesterday I told you about the issues with my childhood church folks and some of the misfortunes I underwent due to a poor relationship choice. Today I am continuing on the same line of “things are not always as they appear to be” but from a separate angle.
So after all the drama and trauma if I may say so myself, I returned to my church and was poorly treated. Ignored and abhorred, dishonoured and hypocritically addressed by many especially the adult leaders, but was still respected and loved by the young people. The negative behaviour of some actually continued until I got married and left for my husband’s church. I came to realize that many of the youths disappeared, dwindling little by little after I left. Many were young and immature and so they did not find the elected leader to their suit and so they shortly began to leave. I realized then that my leadership was totally personality driven and so that posed a problem. I was young myself just out of my teenage years so I didn’t know much about how to lead through serving and stuff like that. It was my personality and passion for God that kept them reaching for Jesus and so when I left they were hurt and uninspired and the rest is history.
Nonetheless on my return the pastor was quite annoyed because the few young people who remained immediately began gravitating to me as before and I must say he was not liking it at all. I tried my best to stay away from them but it was pointless. I sat at the back of the church filled with bitterness and hurt but they would slowly trickle down to the two benches in front of me or beside me Sunday after Sunday [it was not a large church, I was not able to hide]. They actually became the reason church was not a total solitude on death row. It was more like a life sentence with 1 hour of day light once per week.
Sometime after my return, the Lord allowed me to enter Bible school. I actually went because of the Psychology program. It turns out that their psychology program was secondary to their theology. I felt quite misled and even betrayed by the person who knowingly gave me the information. In my state of vexation the Lord told me I would meet my husband there and it was His will for me to be there. I was honestly not interested in what He said about me meeting my husband there. That was the farthest thing from my mind. I kept thinking “I am quite fine all by myself. I don’t need any man”.
So how does “things are not always as they seem to be” come into my story? Well I am going to tell you. There was this one young man who would annoy me every class night. He was always asking me my name, where I worked and stuff like that. I was most disgusted with him and to make matters worst I had to get a ride home in the same car he was travelling. “Just shoot me” I would be thinking. AHHHH! When I would give him an attitude he would simply smile then wait until we get in the car where the others are to bother me. That way, I’d have to answer in order to not appear insolent. He was not my type. He was nothing I would like except that boy was he handsome. He was surely one worth admiring physically. He appeared nerdish though [in comparison to the type of guys I previously dated], he didn’t dress like the macho type that I like, his shave reminded me of an austere police officer and he did not seem anywhere near intelligent enough to be in College by his quirky behavior. I would think “why the heck doesn’t this guy leave me alone. Can’t he get it through his thick skull that he’s not my type at all” [though I had not told him that directly].
Night after night I would try to avoid him because I did not like him but to no avail. Sometimes I would pretend to be sleeping so he would not bother me while we were taking the 1 hour ride home. Ahhh! Finally we had a school event at the Main college campus and I asked him out with deeper intentions. 1) I wanted to get him into an intellectual conversation and destroy his confidence by exposing his lack of versatile and meaningful conversational skills. 2) It was a 3 hour journey and I had no company 3) I wanted to go see my male friends there (emphasis on MALE friends).
He contemplatively agreed and it was decided. On the journey, I struck up a conversation. Good Lord to my surprise, the young man outsmarted me on almost every topic. I was crushed and yet pleasantly surprised. Unbelievable! He was actually quite brilliant. I decided to ditch him as soon as I got there. He figured out quite quickly my reason for asking him out. Lets just say, that day I proved to myself yet again that “things are not always as they appear to be”. I thought he would be mad that I spent all day frolicking and conversing with every other guy but him however he was not. I was hoping he’d be so he would leave me be. He was not and again I realized nothing on the surface about this man was as they appear to be; except his looks. He is really cute 
Needless to say 2 years after, we became man and wife after God confirmed 3 times that he truly was my husband. It was the best decision I made next to serving Jesus with all of my heart. Be careful who you reject because of your surface factual knowledge. They may be the actual wind that you need beneath your wings. Remember, there is a level greater than fact – its called the truth. So again I ask, are you a fact keeper or a truth seeker?
You know, I am very choosy about who I allow access to my personal space. She was unsaved when I first met her but found out she was so nice that I decided to stay with her. I would talk with her about my Jesus and from time to time she would ask me questions about the Bible or church but back then, that was it. Oh how I wonder if I had done enough to represent my Jesus so she could accept him as Lord and Saviour. 
