This past Valentine’s Day was one to be cherished for me. My prayer was that the Lord would reveal to me more of His love, so that I may learn to love more like Him. He answered this prayer in so many ways, but one of the most beautiful ways He answered this prayer was through my husband.
We set about considering ways to show each other our love this special day of the year…as we are learning more about each other, we are learning how to better love each other. I contemplated how to love him how he liked to be loved…and the Lord showed me special, but very simple ways to show him my love. They were precious to him, and his were precious to me. We were able to have a lovely date night at a wonderful restaurant in Leavenworth, with the same name as our favorite restaurant in Colorado Springs–the place where we met, were engaged, and spent our first two days together married 🙂 It was a lovely night, but the greatest gift of all was an unexpected gift.
I am sharing a bit personally here, but I hope this might be beneficial to anyone who is yearning to understand their calling individually and as a family as well.
Brian and I had just finished our “Calling” Sunday School Class, and our wonderful instructor, Tom Schmidt, beckoned us, at the end of class, to pray over our callings individually and together as a couple, and then to get together during a quiet time and discuss and write down our callings, write down our stones of remembrance, and to seek the Lord diligently in our general and specific callings, with these stones in mind. We were both apprehensive about this whole process, as the subject of callings has often been a bit divisive for us…and we certainly were concerned about discussing the subject on Valentine’s Day….but the Lord pressed it upon both our hearts and we prayed if this was the best time to talk about it once again…we both came together again and decided it was.
The Lord brought something incredibly beautiful out of something that had been probably one of the most divisive subjects for us as a couple—HE BROUGHT UNITY!!!! We talked about our general callings, discussed our stones of remembrance (aha moments in our walks with the Lord where He clearly revealed to us something about our unique design as His child and His special plan for us regarding this design), and we discovered much unity even in our own individual callings. It was amazing to me how similar our designs are…even if our specific callings are different, our general callings are VERY similar!!! And as for the future? Well, we still have no clue about that, but it really is amazing to see how the Lord particularly has designed us and moved us forward in the direction He has planned for us. For me, I remembered the moments in my walk that were so powerfully influential. For Brian, he remembered the moments where he really loved doing something God placed in his path, despite the success or failure of it, and how God used these moments in His life. We saw the direction God had us going, even as children, and the seeds He planted in our lives. We saw how He brought our paths together, and intertwined our designs so intricately together, and how He is bringing UNITY out of those designs now. We both have hearts to Shepherd and Disciple/Mentor. For our own family and for others.
I am so encouraged to focus on the similar path the Lord has for us—the similar desires He has placed at the core of our beings. I know He has a wonderful plan for us, and I am content to wait for His Course for the future, knowing more about myself, my strengths (I took a particular strength test to help me with this), the most precious moments of my walk with the Lord, and the Calling He has placed on my life. This enables me to settle comfortably into my own skin, to focus on His particular purpose for me right now, knowing His general purpose for me as well. We have direction. We have purpose. We have unity 🙂 THIS is a powerful answer to prayer! And a special gift to us on Valentine’s Day.
Walking in Faith 