My Story!

Let me begin this by saying that as Christians God has given each of us a story! Some are more dramatic than others. Some are more traumatic than others. Some are easy and some are hard. But nonetheless each of us has a story! It’s our choice whether we will use that story to bring God glory and maybe help others in the process or if we are going to sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened! I have wanted to share my story for years, but have never had the opportunity or maybe I’ve never taken the opportunity. I’m done with not taking the opportunity. God has so burdened my heart to share that I can’t get away from it. Thoughts of it are part of all of my waking hours and sometimes part of my sleeping hours. So here starts my story, I pray that God will take it and use it for His Glory!

This all begins July 16, 1989. I was 16 years old and on vacation with my family at Myrtle Beach. While I was there I met a boy! He was the love of my life (as a 16 year old girl which boy that you meet isn’t the love of your life)! He was from Roanoke, Va. We spent the next 3 days together. It was time for him to go home and time for me to come back to Huntington. I was heartbroken I had lost the love of my life! Boy was I surprised when I received a phone from this boy, after we had both returned home, saying he wanted to come to Huntington and visit me! Little did I know that God was already at work in my life long before I accepted Him as my Savior. This boy (who of course really did turn out to be the love of my life, my husband, Paul) came to visit and that was the beginning of our relationship. There was only one problem….his dad was a pastor and he came from a strong Christian family. I was raised in church, but at this time had not accepted Christ as my Savior. I was not around his family a lot during our dating relationship mostly because of distance and a lot because I knew I would never fit in with his family. Anyway, back to the story. I started my senior of high school. Our relationship continued (off and on through the year). I was busy doing high school senior things…..LOTS of partying! What else were you supposed to do as a senior in high school?!  I was also planning and working out the next phase of my life…..college! My major was planned (fashion merchandising). My career was planned (fashion merchandiser). I was accepted at Marshall. I had it all figured out! This is so funny now looking back because again God was already working on redirecting MY plans and MY future!  He knew what I needed and what I didn’t need. He knew my life needed to be redirected. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are you ways my ways.” declares the Lord~ Isaiah 55:8 (NIV). My senior year was moving along just as I had planned.  Then it happened the “divine interruption” (as the Bible Study I am currently doing has called them). I was less than a month from graduating high school. Still together with the love of my life and remember I had my life planned out. I had no need  or time for any type of intervention or interruption, but again those we all MY plans! God had His plans! Keep in mind I was still not saved at this point! At the end of May 1990 I found out I was pregnant. One of the first people who found out (not a family member or friend) said you need to get an abortion. You can’t have this baby. Even though I was not a Christian at that time I knew that was not what I needed to do. I was having this baby. So the beginning of June I graduated high school 17 years old and 6 weeks pregnant. WOW! Talk about having your plans changed! “For I know the plans I have for you, “declares the Lord. ”Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.~Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV). Little did I know the future He had for me. Paul and I were engaged in July after I graduated and married in September. Paul was still living in Roanoke, so I moved down there after we got married. Remember me saying Paul’s dad was a pastor? Well, we began attending church at his dad’s church. I heard things that I had never heard in church before. I was around Paul’s family more. They were wonderful. They accepted me and loved me even with the situation that we were in. I was very overwhelmed by them. I was an only child. Paul was 1 of 7. Need I say more =)! They also prayed before meals (what was up with that). They talked about God in normal conversation (not just after church). I just didn’t get it. We continued to attend church even though I didn’t get a lot out of it (yet). On February 1^st Paul and I welcomed our little “divine intervention”. God brought Meghan Hope Watson Law into our family. I was 18 years old and I had been entrusted with new little baby to take care of! What was God thinking? I started going back to church. This time I really listened. It’s amazing how children change our thinking and priorities! I got my Bible out and started looking through it. I sat through church services during the invitations shaking because I knew I needed to get saved. I remember being at a revival service and hearing a preacher named John Gamble speak and all I wanted to do was run down that aisle, but I didn’t. I still to this day am amazed at what satan will do to keep people from accepting Christ. Then on May 20, 1990 I went to church alone. Paul stayed at home with Meghan because she had been sick. God was at work again, because in the car on the way home from church that night I was so convicted by my need to accept Christ as my Savior that I just cried out for Him to save me. I knew that I was a sinner. I knew that if I didn’t ask Him into my heart I was going to Hell! Paul’s dad baptized me a couple of months later. Life has never been the same since. Has it always been perfect? NO! Have I always done everything I was supposed to? NO! Would I change anything about it? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!

You ask why do I feel the need to share this. First, I share it because I believe God has told me to and I want to be obedient to Him. If it can show others that “divine interventions” happen for a reason then I will tell this story a million times. Second, nothing that happened in this whole situation was a surprise to God. He knew my plans needed to be changed. He knew the direction of my life needed to be different than I had planned. What if I hadn’t of met Paul? What if I hadn’t of gotten pregnant? Would I have gotten saved? Only God knows that! Would I have continued down the path of partying and drinking all the time? Maybe! You see there is alcoholism in my family. Was God trying to keep me from going down that road? I would say possibly! Would I have been blessed with my two other children and been able to raise all three of them in a Christian home? I doubt it!

God has a plan! They may not be your plans, but we are so much better off with His plans rather than trying to go with our plans! Remember these 2 things:

1. If you are not saved, God wants you to know today that He loves you! He sent His Son, Jesus to go to the cross. To die on that cross for your sins and for my sins. He wants you to accept Christ as your Savior today! Please contact me if you have questions! Don’t let one more day pass without knowing Him!
2. If you are saved Christ has given you a story. are you willing to use it for Him? 

I don’t believe for one second that God allowed Paul and I to meet in the way that we did just to laugh about the fact that we met at the beach. I believe He wants us to use our story and our situation for Him! It may have taken me 20 years to get this out, but I had some lessons to learn and He had to get me to the point where I could share this! To Him be all the glory!

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”~Joshua 1:9 (NIV)