Miracle Story | Hiding Something to Help Me - Episode 20

Miracle Story | Hiding Something to Help Me - Episode 20

Many years after that last miracle, I was through college and working a full-time job. I had bought a house and felt like life was good. I was attending a church I loved and had many good friends. I thought I was past that last toxic relationship and in a good place. But I wasn’t.
Once again, I am going to divulge another shameful episode in my life with a miracle attached. I am being vulnerable to you so that you can see that if you maintain a relationship with God, no matter how much you mess up, He will always be there for you. I had a heart to do what was right and to serve God, but I was still broken with an overwhelming need to feel loved. That is the operative word right there - feel.
The truth was that I was loved. God had so much love for me that there aren’t words to describe. Even though I sought him out daily, I didn’t allow myself to feel His love for me. If I had, it would have changed everything, and later it did. But during this period, I still felt ‘less-than’.
During this time, I was working as the office manager for a large commercial construction company. We had operations going all across the United States. As office manager, I frequently spoke with employees in various parts of the country. There was one particular employee who flirted with me, and my damaged soul ate it up.
It wasn’t long before we were talking outside of business. He was working in Minnesota, and I was here in Oklahoma. Long distant charges applied, and my phone bill went through the roof, as did his.
I soon became in love with love and then the attention he was giving me. Finally, he flew here, and we met each other. For me, there were no sparks. But I needed to push forward because I was afraid of losing what I thought was someone to love me. It would work. I would make it work.
He really was a nice guy, but not someone who was right for me. It didn’t matter; I was determined to force it into happening. Even though the logistics of it could never have made sense. See, he worked in Minnesota, but he lived in Denver, Colorado. He had an ex-wife and two young boys there.
He worked in Minnesota and then every other week went back home to Colorado to be with his boys. Do the math. When on earth would he have been able to be with me? One weekend a month with me and one weekend a month with his boys. We never really thought it through.
He was lonely working in Brainard, Minnesota, and I was lonely - period. So, on a whim, we spontaneously decided to get married. I flew up there; we got married in the hotel and spent the weekend together. He had made all the arrangements for our tiny little wedding, the preacher, the marriage license, etc. The hotel staff even threw us a little tiny reception.
I really liked him and was sad to fly home. When I was packing to go home, he made sure I had the marriage certificate so that I could change my name and anything else I might need it for. I carefully tucked it away safely.
When I got home, I searched and searched for it. I dumped everything out of the bag. I held it by the bottom and shook it out over my bed. I searched my suitcase and purse. It was nowhere to be found. I had him search even though we both remembered distinctly him giving it to me and me putting it in my bag. He couldn’t find it either.
What that meant was that I couldn’t immediately change my name on all my accounts, cards, documents, etc. I continued to search everywhere, particularly in the bag I knew I had placed it in. Nothing.
In a month he came to see me and spent the weekend with me. We had curtailed our talk time because neither one of us could honestly afford the several hundred dollar phone bill we had been racking up.
We he came, I was glad to see him, but the reality of our situation set in. He was coming to visit me in my world. My home, my kids, my church, my daily life that honestly he hadn’t been able to be part of. It felt strange. It felt off.
Not long after he went back to Minnesota, he called me, and we talked. Reality had set in. We discussed the impossibility of his living/working logistics and then being with me on top of all that. It was foolishness.
We also discussed the fact that we both didn’t really know each other and that we were quite different. We had only known each other by talking on the phone for about a month or so. We had only been together twice before getting married. And yes, I am once again cringing telling this story. I am so ashamed and embarrassed about my behavior once again. As a thirty-something I should have known better.
I agreed with him. He had already been with an attorney to discuss options. I was a little sad, but knew it was right. He had discussed an annulment with the attorney, but we didn’t fit the profile for annulment in Minnesota. So he filed for divorce, and I requested to keep my previous name. I was so thankful that I hadn’t gone through all the mess of changing my name on everything. For a woman, that is a big, lengthy ordeal. But since I had lost the marriage license, I wasn’t able to do that.
We had known each other for about a month and a half when we got married and then were married for about another month. After the divorce was filed, one day I was getting ready to use the bag where I really thought I had put the marriage license. I was putting something in the bag and noticed something strange about the bottom.
It had a hard fabric-covered bottom in the same fabric as the interior of the bag. The hard bottom was wedged hard into the bottom of the bag so it would not move. Honestly, I thought the bottom of the bag was fixed permanently to the bag. But that particular day, when I looked at the bottom because it looked funny, I studied it closely.
The bottom was fixed, but not permanently. I saw that something was underneath the bottom, but it wouldn’t just lift out. It was truly wedged into the bag firmly. I could finally get the bottom out of the bag. There lay my marriage license. I knew immediately that God had, probably an angel, wedged that certificate under the bottom of the bag.
There was no way it could have slid under there on its own. The bottom of the bag was about the same size as the folded-up certificate. It hadn’t been halfway under with part sticking out. It was perfectly lying completely underneath the bottom.
I knew, simply and perfectly knew, that God had done that for me to spare me from all the trouble and heartache of having to undo a temporary marriage that was no doubt a huge mistake.
I studied that bag and certificate for a long time. I replaced the bottom of the bag and tried to make the certificate slide under the bottom. I couldn’t do it. The way the bag had been designed, it just wouldn’t allow anything to slide underneath.
Here I was once again being a bumbling, damaged young woman doing ridiculous things while God was still watching over me and loving me all the same. In all my stupidity, I never stopped praying and loving Him. Once again I felt so ashamed and went to God with that shame. He never heaped condemnation on me, only love and forgiveness.
My hope in including these humiliating stories is to hopefully tell you that God’s love is unwavering. It is to our own benefit not to do stupid things, but that doesn’t change God’s love for us. 
If you find yourself in the middle of a mess or compulsively doing stupid things, just remember one thing, the most important thing - never ever stop communicating with God. Give Him your mess. Cry to Him about your mess. But never walk away or give up on Him. He will never give up on you.

This study is a culmination of this week’s Monday Meditation and the Wednesday Word Study. By drilling down on specific scriptures and then specific words, we can begin to gain a better understanding of the Word of God and therefore apply it to our lives more accurately. The Friday Finally episodes take both the Monday Meditation and Wednesday Word Study and pull them together for an overall teaching to equip and train us for a more Godly and beneficial life.

This study is a culmination of this week’s Monday Meditation and the Wednesday Word Study. By drilling down on specific scriptures and then specific words, we can begin to gain a better understanding of the Word of God and therefore apply it to our lives more accurately. The Friday Finally episodes take both the Monday Meditation and Wednesday Word Study and pull them together for an overall teaching to equip and train us for a more Godly and beneficial life.

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