My brother-in-law gets the credit for matching us up, but I know the story began long before he said to Kris, “You should meet Becky’s sister.”
A long, long, time ago there were a couple of mothers who prayed for their children to find godly spouses. On two very different peninsula states, one in Michigan and one in Florida, God heard from these two mothers as they asked Him to guide the paths of their children, and lead them to His best for them.
In 1990 I moved to Nashville to go to school. In 1994 Kris moved to Nashville to work in the music industry. We met just over two years later in early 1997.
I had never wanted to go to college. My move to Nashville was a matter of convenience, as it allowed me to live with my sister, and though I didn’t know it when I moved down, it afforded me a paid in full tuition bill because of my proximity to her.
Before I ever met Kris, there were circumstances and coincidences that showed me how carefully God directed my steps. I was sure of His concern and His interaction. The fact that my sister had come to Nashville was a series of small miracles in itself. My following her down was a more natural progression, but it was those early ‘signs and wonders’ that led the way.
I was never fully invested in school. Not because I was ungrateful, but because I didn’t care about getting a degree. My goal was not a prestigious career, my goal was pretty simple. I wanted to marry someone, find a nice piece of land, and a house, and start having babies. I wasn’t interested in settling down with just anyone though, and so I was praying and seeking God for, the right person. I went out on a few dates with people, and could see God working in some of those short lived relationships, but I was often frustrated in what wasn’t happening.
There was one boy specifically, a new guy at church, so nice looking, and he seemed interested in me. I got such mixed signals from him though, and I finally just put my own hand up to his invasion of my head, and said ‘enough!’ I didn’t want to think about him anymore because it was too difficult to know where I stood. I didn’t want that. As I took my little broken heart home after a particularly charged interaction with this boy at church I sat down by myself and cried out to God.
I said, “Lord, no matter what happens, no matter how much hurt I’ve been through,” and then I quoted a hymn I loved, “‘If Ever I Loved Thee, My Jesus ‘Tis Now.'” And I meant it. I knew that He was there for me. I KNEW in the deepest recesses of my heart that He would never let go of what I was to Him. I grabbed the hymnal that was sitting on the piano bench nearby and randomly opened the book. It fell open to the very song, I had just quoted. Tears were already brimming, but now, thankful for the fact that no one else was there to hear me, I bawled. I just let loose the emotion, and thanked God in tearful worship for His presence, and His goodness to me. He is always faithful in showing me that He is near.
Not long after the experience with the hymnal, I slipped out of bed one night, and walked to the living room of our apartment and sat down with God to talk. I told Him how there were young men I liked, that didn’t like me, that there were young men who liked me, that I didn’t like, and it all seemed so hopeless at times. I began to pray for people, people who needed more than a date, people around me who needed an encounter with God. As I did, God interrupted my prayers and said, “I am going to choose someone for you.”
My reaction was quick and firm, “No!” I said. I loved God, and I trusted God, but I also knew that His priorities were not interested in some of the things I still wanted in a husband. I didn’t want to be partnered well in ministry, but not in respect and attraction, and for whatever reason, that’s what I was afraid of. I even pictured a young man in my church who seemed nice enough, but just didn’t have a bit of the manliness factor I was hoping for. I paused a minute to figure out why I was being so rude to God, and being the patient Person that He is, He just reminded me of something I had heard at a concert a few weeks previous. Morgan Cryar had sat down in our little sanctuary that the college and youth kids used on Sundays and offered us an intimate concert. He used that time to speak into our lives a bit, and the one thing I remember him saying was, “If God wanted to make you miserable, He wouldn’t wait for your permission.”
That is what God brought to my mind that night. And because of it, I surrendered. I laid down my husband search, and began a new mission of trust in my heavenly Father. I would let Him choose someone for me. I committed in that moment to stop looking. I would keep my eyes open, but I would not spend my time wondering if that face, that voice, that hunk of manhood was the one, I would let God show me.
This was all part of a new commitment to serving God. I no longer let myself be pre-occupied by my husband search or my talent opportunities, but instead I asked God what He wanted from me. Without going into too much detail, God opened doors for me that my talents were not adequate to open on their own. He gave me opportunities that my laid back personality would not have chased down. He showed me that He was the One thing I could truly trust, and then He said, quit school and travel with a ministry team. So I did.
Traveling on weekends is not the way to meet your husband. It can happen, but it doesn’t give you a lot of opportunity to spend enough time with someone to get to know them. I was much more interested in obedience and the idea of God using me, than I was in figuring out the husband thing though. I had let go of that.
Five years of travel, experiences, people, education, teaching, performing, disappointments, accidents, comforts, discomforts, excitement, and lots and lots of amazing ministry with amazing people all over the country. It was five years that taught me so much about life and relationships. I am so thankful for how God chose to teach me what I needed to know.
During that five years on the road, Kris moved to Tennessee from Florida. He took on jobs here and there where he could, and pursued the type of work he wanted in the music industry. His experience as a radio DJ and sound and lights tech. at his large church gave him some credence in the industry and after a while he was given the opportunity to travel with an artist who needed a sound man. As the artist grew in popularity, Kris was given more responsibility, and when the artist became a band, he became the road manager as well as sound and lights technician. His time traveling with Jeff Deyo gave him a similar education in life and relationships that I was getting with the ministry team I was with.
Kris’ road life was not as all encompassing as mine, so he kept a standing part time job at a small company owned by a man he went to church with. My brother-in-law, also a traveling musician, worked there as well, and as they got to know one another he encouraged him to meet me. Of course this was next to impossible with my schedule taking me out of state almost every weekend, but when Images, the team I traveled with, took a six month sabbatical I became reacquainted with home. It was during this break I realized I was no longer at home at the church that had been my jumping off point for ministry. My doctrinal convictions were growing, and the differences in what they taught, and what I believed were at odds. I joined my sister and her husband at Cornerstone Church a few times, and realized I really enjoyed the services, I was fascinated by the pastor, and I wasn’t having any trouble with the doctrine. I thought the church was non-denominational, they seemed to have a freedom in worship that didn’t cross over into some of the weird stuff that had always turned me off in pentecostal churches in the past. When I found out it was actually Assemblies of God, it was too late, I was already hooked. It didn’t take me long to see that Cornerstone was home, and I was grateful to have a place I could visit regularly and invest myself.
Kris was also attending Cornerstone. We had even been in the same services a few times, but we never crossed paths until we met at work. During my six month sabbatical I needed to pay rent, so I took a couple part time jobs. One was working two days a week as the receptionist at the church. The other was using the remaining three days a week working for Omega Mail Services, where my brother-in-law worked, and of course where Kris worked too.
Before we met at Omega he popped in at the church while I was working. My sister was in a cubicle right behind me at the front desk of the church offices. I greeted him, but my sister quickly jumped from her seat and said, “Hi Kris.”
He held up a set of keys and said he was leaving them for his roommate. She responded that he should leave them there on the counter and she’d let him know. I remember he paused and looked at me, then at her, but she never acknowledged me, so he left. He knew I must be the much talked of younger sister, but Becky was not as convinced of her husband’s matchmaking skills as he was and didn’t even consider introducing us at that time.
We did officially meet once I began working at Omega. We worked in different areas, and he was still traveling off and on, so I didn’t really see him too often. We were casual friends. I knew he was younger than me by a few years, so I honestly didn’t think he would consider me someone to date.
He went on a particularly long trip to Colorado and I was at home busy with work and church. I had joined the choir and our church was growing by leaps and bounds. We had moved the congregation into the gymnasium and were holding three services every Sunday morning and two every Sunday night. As the church filled each week there was a momentum and a sense of expectancy that grew in the people. Worship was electric, and people were excited to be a part of whatever God was doing among us. One night the children’s pastor stood during worship and took a microphone. He spoke with conviction about the presence of God. He said, “This is one of those moments when God’s presence is so thick in this place, and if you need something from Him, now is the time to ask.” He invited people to the altars and there was a charge of souls to the front. I sat behind the stage, behind the drum cage even, amidst the choir that stretched three or four rows deep across the back of the stage. I felt what everyone else was feeling. The same energy and excitement was around me and I smiled as I considered if I should ask God for something. I remember thinking, “I don’t need anything,” and it made me happy. Now, I was barely making it financially, driving an old but reliable car, and I could have used some cash, but in my mind I was so thankful that my jobs were paying the rent, and that I wasn’t suffering or sick, I felt perfectly content.
In that moment of contentment the Holy Spirit spoke to me, “Go ask me for a husband.”
For the second time, I told God “No!” I said, “God, you told me years ago, that you would choose someone for me. I believed you and I know you will take care of this for me.
He said, “Go ask me for a husband.”
I said, “God, what if I go down there, and some well meaning person comes up to pray with me and asks me what I’m seeking God for? I would be SO EMBARRASSED!”
He said, “Go ask me for a husband.”
So, as quickly as I could, I slipped out of my seat, slid myself out of the choir loft down the four steps to the floor and knelt at the wooden altar for about 5 seconds and said, “God, please give me a husband,” and went back to my seat.
Kris was enjoying his trip to Colorado, but felt an unmistakable urge to get home. There wasn’t much for him at home typically, but this trip seemed to affect him differently. This urge hit him, right around the same time as the service at church in which I embarrassingly asked God for a husband.
It wasn’t long after we were both on Tennessee soil that he met me outside the church building as I intended to rush in for a choir practice that I was late for. I stopped before pulling the door open. He looked at me and said, “I was wondering if you’d want to go get something to eat after church?”
I was out of breath from my hurry, and nearly unable to respond with real words, but managed a sure nod, and an “Okay,” before heading into the gym. We went to Pargos, a long gone restaurant chain, and I ordered a salad. I don’t remember what he ordered, but he paid with a card. Debit cards were very new at this time. I think my bank had sent me the option to use one and I had rejected the idea, knowing my propensity to forget what I’ve spent, I needed cash that I could see physically disappearing from my wallet, or a checkbook with a register to tell me how much was available to me. I assumed the card he was using was a credit card and I nearly ended our relationship right then. I was not interested in dating debt, let alone marrying it. I had some hard boundaries. I don’t know how, but I found out it was a debit card, and I felt a lot better about it. When he drove me back to my car at the church he mentioned something about having a good time, and I thought he had asked to go out again, and said, “Yeah, I’d like that.”
We did go out again, and again, and again. We spent a lot of time together after that. Knowing our time was limited between his trips out, and my going back to traveling soon, we prioritized each other. He was so easy to get to know, easy to talk to, easy to understand. We had a lot of complimentary tendencies. He understood my humor, and challenged me intellectually. He didn’t fawn over my ability to sing, or my position in ministry, and I didn’t like that, but I learned to live with it. Not really. I wanted him to appreciate my abilities and what I did, but I did not like being put on a pedestal, because pedestals are flimsy, fickle things. He met the criteria I was looking for in a husband.
I wanted a man who loved God more than he loved me.
I wanted a man who served God.
I wanted a man who knew what it meant to hear from God.
In the process of our conversations and the digging we did in the short amount of time we dated, I saw in him what I hoped for in a relationship. I believed he would not falter in difficult times. I believed he would be honest, even if I didn’t want honesty. I believed he would lead when leadership was required, and I believed he knew the voice of God and that his leadership would be defined by that knowing.
As I type this we have been married for nearly 23 years. Our story is fairly simple, but it’s one I’ve always enjoyed telling. I know, that I know, that I know, that God arranged our marriage, and that as long as we are faithful to acknowledge Him, we will see His continued cultivation of our bond. When doubts rise up, it is easy to squelch them because if God arranged this marriage, He knows how to keep it together.
We are neither one perfect, but God is the strength that is exposed by our weakness, and we can only become better the more we are aware of our frailties.
Here are some of my favorite marriage posts: