When God Changes Our Hearts Together

He was a college boy in the last semester of music education classes. He toured with the university’s praise and worship group, singing Bass.   He wore collared shirts at all times, his young-adult uniform, if you will. He was completing that final semester of college classes, student teaching with the best music educators in the best school districts in the area. Among his friends, he was known for his kindness, his laugh, and his witty sense of humor. His duplex was a place for game nights. He worked for his uncle as a pizza guy in his college town and dated a girl who was well-known in the community for her kindness and integrity. He regularly drove the four hour stretch of highway home to visit his family, especially his two young nieces. His life was good. 

  
A little more than a decade ago, he met a girl who owned a polo in every bright and pastel color and spent a few hours a day straightening her curly hair. {I wish that was an exaggeration. Really, I do.}  She was moving to his university to continue her studies in elementary education.  She was a simple, small-town girl, transferring from a community college where she had worked in the theater and rehearsed every night for musicals, and was moving from her hometown where she worked as a preschool teacher.  They were just college kids.
She met him on her first day at the University as she asked him to point her in the direction of the t-shirt box more than a few times. {Type A girls don’t like to make mistakes on the first day of anything.   Over-explaining is essential, he learned quickly.}  By mid-November, they were falling in love.
The rest is history. It’s our history.  Pizza nights and attending church together led to friendship and friendship led to adoration.  Being smitten with one another led to dating and eventually smooching.  Friendship and kissing basically lead to marriage, you know.  

Graduations led to seminary, student teaching, and teaching in our own classrooms.  There was the first music ministry position, the renting of the little duplex, the arrival of the first baby boy, and the move to the home we would call our own.   More teaching jobs, another music ministry position, and another sweet baby boy followed the move.  Working in the same school district meant that we became inseparable.  Becoming a stay-at-home mom meant that I learned to value our weekends together all the more.  A third baby boy blessed our family soon after, all the while God continued to mold our marriage and our family.  We have grown into people so very different from the college kids we once knew.  The constant?  It’s Jesus.
When we first fell in love, we were a couple of churchy college kids in the {happy and wonderful} bubble of a private University.  We loved Jesus very much, but we didn’t know Him the way we know Him today.  

Marriage does this thing.  It gets real and complicated and messy and wonderful and challenging.  Marriage has difficult days and beautiful days and praise God, because we have had bad moments but they all knew the redeeming love of our Savior.  We have learned and (goodness gracious) are still learning what it means to follow God’s plan for marriage.  If ever anyone has loved me the way Jesus loves the church, it is my husband.  {And I have wonderful parents, but this is God’s plan that husbands would love like this.} We sure have done a chunk of living and learning.

  
In all of this,  something significant has happened.  We have changed.  The changes in our hearts have been drastic and transformative to the way we see the world.  Many aspects of my life, in particular, are nearly unrecognizable from the girl my husband fell in love with.  A tiny example?  I wouldn’t dream of spending that much time on my hair.  How silly that I ever did.  My phrase for such things has become, “What’s that doing for the Kingdom?”  and, “Ain’t nobody got time for that,” because for real.  I’m raising humans over here and THAT is worthy of my time and energy.  Quite frankly, motherhood goes rather well with my hair being thrown on top of my head in a bun most days, but I digress.

The changes in our hearts have been wildly surprising at times.  Three summers ago, before my plane left for Haiti, my husband gave me a card with a beautiful and encouraging message.  He was all, “Go show the love of Jesus to the people of the world,” until the very last sentence in small letters at the bottom of the card.  It read, “By the way, we are not moving to Haiti.  Try not to think about that.”  We both laughed hysterically because he knows me too well.  The disclaimer was necessary.  Some days, I’m ready to pack us all up for the mission field.  This kind of stuff?  Yeah, my husband didn’t marry that kind of girl.

  
I genuinely asked him a few years back, “Does it bother you that I have changed so much since you married me?  I mean…I’m not really the same sort of person, am I?”

Not at all,” he smiled, “but no, it doesn’t bother me.  I love who you are.  You have changed, but isn’t it weird how we have both changed in the same ways?  God has changed our hearts together.” 

He is absolutely right.  I’m not exactly the wife he signed up for: my dreams, my world view, even my personality have all been shaped by the goodness of God through His merciful, refining, sanctifying, heart-changing power.  This is good.  It’s spiritual growth.  That sweet husband of mine?  God has changed his heart, refined his goals, and molded his world-view and ambitions right along with mine.  Our changing hearts?  They’re changing at the same pace.  I’m not exactly the girl he married and yet, I’m still the perfect companion for my sweet husband.  God has changed my heart.  He has changed my heart right along with my husband’s.  To God be the glory for the perfect timing of His perfect plans. I am in awe of His sovereign ways.

  
I fly across an ocean, just days after my husband tells me that he loves the way God has changed us, molded us, refined us in prefect unity.  I’m in a country that my heart adores when I visit a Compassion school, a school where children have sponsors from my own country that financially empower them to receive and education and warm meals.  The uniforms these children wear and the rice in their bellies?  All of this is provided by God’s grace as He changes one heart, one sponsor at a time, to support the physical and educational needs of a child across an ocean.  When the physical and educational needs are met, the spiritual development follows.  School uniforms and rice in bellies?  The message is a clear and beautiful, “Jesus loves you.  My God has a plan for you.”  This is amazing grace.  

  
In our home, around our dinner table, we have discussed this very world need a bazillion times.  How can we cut back to give more?  This is always the question, for us and for so many in our country.  God speaks to our hearts, my husband and I, in His perfect timing.  We know that cancelling our cable would free up a monthly bill.  We know that the price of watching television shows is the life-saving price of rice in a hungy belly.  The conversation continues for a few months.  God is changing our hearts, but perhaps we are slow to listen.  I suppose Americans like television…or maybe it’s just us.  It seems silly.  It is rather ridiculous.  We only watch a couple shows a week while a precious child of God is waiting for a sponsor.  She is waiting for rice and beans at the next meal.  He is waiting for the school uniform, the opportunity to sit at a desk, the chance to learn and grow.  All the while–we discuss.  We plan.  Maybe we’ll trade cable for Netflix.  Sometimes our priveledged  ways are a distraction from what really matters to the heart of God.  We are slow learners, but He keeps refining us.

  
As I visit their classrooms, as their hands reach mine, I hear the call of God on my heart even louder.  It is an obvious decision.  When I return home, I will tell my sweet husband that I’m ready for this chance to give.  Cancel the cable, get Netflix if it seems the rational way to make the change.  Either way, I know it is time.

  
My wifi is sketchy while I am away.  The conversations are limited and I don’t find the opportunity to tell him of the way God has spoken to my heart.  I’m fairly certain that I will burst with excitement when I walk in the door.  My heart cannot wait much longer to sponsor a little child.  I wish I could sponsor ten!  I resolve that rice in one belly?  This is enough to change the world.  God changes the world one nourished child, one educated mind, one sacrifice of cable {for the love} at a time.  Sponsoring one child will be an obedient “yes” to my sovereign Creator and I’m all in.

  
It’s the middle of the night when I finally reach my house, open the garage door, and wheel my suitcase inside.  Much to my suprise, my three little guys were granted permission from their Daddy to “wait up for Monmy.”  He’s a brilliant daddy, really. He knows this is a win-win because the boys will likely rest later in the morning, allowing rest for this weary Mommy as well.  Genius.

They all speak at once.  

“We missed you!  We love you!”

“Did you carry that frog all the way from Haiti?!” Goodness gracious, no.  It was hopping around  in the garage when I opened the door.  This makes us laugh.

“Did you bring us a present?”

“Did you fly on the airplane?”

“Did you swim in the ocean?”

…and then I hear it.  The world stops turning for a minute when a little voice says, “Mommy, we have Netflix!  Daddy says I can sponsor a little boy.  We read all about him!  He likes football and wants to be a police!”

My eyes meet my husband’s.  “I hope that’s okay,” he says as my eyes grow wide in disbelief.  He sees my wife eyes and says, “It’s just a trial for a month.  I haven’t cancelled the cable yet.  I was just trying to get the boys to understand, and we’ve been reading the Compassion International website.  They’re actually really excited!”

  
There is a pause.  My husband must think that I’m not on board.  He hasn’t a clue when I whisper, “No, it’s perfect.”  The lump in my throat prohibits the immediate unfolding of my explanation.  A few minutes later, I am able to pour my heart out in its wordy and passionate entirety.  My soul praises God.  He has done it again.  He never fails.  Again and again: more evidence that God  changes our hearts together.  

  
I married him when I was twenty-two years old.  I walked down the aisle to the words, “This is my anthem.  This is my song, the theme of the stories I’ve heard all along.  God has been faithful.  He will be again.  His loving compassion, it knows no end.  All I have need of, His hand will provide.  He’s always been faithful to me.”

To God be the glory for His faithful timing, His loving compassion that knows no end.  He has faithfully changed our hearts together again and again.  Praise His Holy name!  He is faithful.

From my thankful heart to yours,   ~Courtney

Written for my husband, on our 7th wedding anniversary.  God’s timing is perfect.