Finding God in Goodwill

Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

I truly believe God is pleased by those who delight in Him. From the moment I first prayed with Nick on July 11, 2021, God has delighted in our union, watching us grow in faith together. After all, God had orchestrated our meeting, guiding me to pray in the summer of 2018 for a man I did not yet know, and then making it clear that Nick was that man when I finally met him three years later. (When God Writes the Love Story)

God has been gladdened by our daily prayer time, our bible studies, our commitment to HIM. He has delighted in our travel this past year and the tears I’ve shed at the beauty of His nature. How can anyone view a mountain or an ocean and not be in awe of God’s creation?

I’m not sure my dear husband quite “gets” my obsession with secondhand stores, though he has observed how my prayer life extends even to thrift shopping. Before we were married, I’d gotten as far as adding the red plates and bowls I wanted for our first home to my online Kohls cart before hesitating at the hefty price tag.

“I have a strong feeling I’m not to purchase them new,” I told Nick later that day. “And that we should check out Stuff.” (a local consignment store) Once there, I headed directly to the household section, where I immediately spotted them: a stack of six red plates and bowls. I purchased all twelve for less than the price of one new plate. Coincidence? Synchronicity? Or do we have a God who actually cares about His daughter’s delight? Don’t we as parents search for the perfect gift for our child, then revel in their joy when we’ve accomplished that purpose?

No one needs a leather jacket, it’s true. But I did want one when I saw my husband’s. Sharing my desire and the “thrill of the hunt” for a good deal with Nick, I began searching the racks at various thrift and consignment stores. Within a week, I found the perfect one, brand-new, with tags still attached, for a mere $25. After my credit at the store, I didn’t pay a penny. Neither did I need a colorful trunk to hold all my creativity workshop materials, but I like to think that God had something to do with me finding this brand-new trunk at the same consignment store. I’m convinced Our Father delights in my enjoyment of these things.

This is how God works in my life ever since I developed a personal relationship with Him in 2012. It should have come as no surprise then, when I told my husband to postpone purchasing some salt and pepper and parmesan cheese shakers for his business because God would help me find some that my next visit to the consignment store, I actually did.

And yet, I was surprised. In fact, I may have gasped in awe when I spotted two new packages of parmesan cheese shakers and a new package of glass salt and pepper shakers. I mean, come on, what are the odds? Within a day or two of confidently assuring my husband God would provide those items, He did. Not only that, but my Goodwill stop netted the exact type of backpack my husband had suggested I get for our future trips, in lieu of carrying a purse. One of my favorite brands, and in my signature leopard print! A Relic backpack for $6.00? The stationery sets and leather book of prayers for my husband were just icing on the cake. Not pictured are several items I purchased for Christmas gifts.

This doesn’t mean I get everything I want, any more than we as parents should fulfill our child’s every desire. But it does mean that because I am open to God’s guidance, sometimes I feel led by the Spirit to stop at a certain store, pick up a particular book, or reach out to a perfect stranger.

And sometimes, God surprises me with more than I ever hoped for or imagined. Like Nick.

Love, Sweet Love, ACT II

They must have seen something in my eyes.

Why else would the couple I’d been interviewing ask if they could pray for me?

I met many wonderful people through my work as a newspaper reporter, people whose stories changed my life irrevocably. I’d interviewed Bill and Marcheta Lux for their unique love story for a Valentine’s Day issue, but it was the experience of holding their hands as they prayed out loud for me that has never left me.

Bill and Marcheta were both widowed and in their eighties when they met in 2011. As a four-year veteran widow, their story fascinated me. I noted with curiosity the ease in which they talked about their former spouse, how their hands automatically reached out to pat the other’s knee.

According to the couple, the secret to a successful marriage was inside the well-worn book on the end table next to Bill’s chair.

“Every day I asked God what his will was for me,” Bill said as he pulled a folded piece of paper from inside the Bible. “I wasn’t sure about getting married again.”

It was during a Christian radio show he got his answer. Jotting down notes about what to look for in a mate, he realized Marcheta met all the criteria.

“Number one is that the person must be Christian,” Bill read from the paper. “Marchetta trusted the Lord with all her heart. Second, the person must be trustworthy with all things. Number three is honesty. Marcheta is trustworthy and honest. And number four is the desire to be with the person, even when you aren’t being intimate. And I wanted to be with Marcheta all the time.”

Marcheta had smiled indulgently as Bill expounded on her virtues, discretely gesturing to me with a pointed finger that it was him who was so wonderful. As they stood for a picture, Bill slung his arm around the woman he loved, pulling her close.

“I want to be with her for as long as I have left,” he said, his head resting against hers.

My breath caught in my throat, my heart aching for what they had. My hands shook with emotion as my fingers fumbled for the button on the camera. Had my loneliness been so visible to Bill? Because what happened next didn’t make sense for a reporter concluding an interview.

“Can we pray with you?” Bill asked, and his wife nodded.

I put down my camera and held out my hands to take each of theirs. Following their lead, I bowed my head as Bill began praying.

He thanked God for the day and an opportunity to share their story. Tears sprung to my eyes as he continued. “Dear Lord, if it is your will, we ask you to bless Mary with a love story like ours.”

I don’t remember the rest of his prayer, past that heartfelt plea for me.

Bill would share his life with Marcheta for another three years. I heard that she followed him Home that next summer, while I was busy lamenting a loneliness that had heightened with the isolation of the pandemic.

A year later, this Christian couple’s prayer was answered when I got my own love story, one that rivals the newspaper narrative in its intensity and romance. God has been in it from the beginning, and I am in awe of the results. I have more questions than answers in how I’m to proceed in writing or speaking about this second marriage, but I’ve known since I met Nick that God wants me to share our story. Journal entries since our meeting have been prolific and daily prayers for guidance and discernment have resulted in pages of notes, so no doubt the how and when will be revealed. One thing that has been clear to both of us: We want to be with each other for as long as we have left.

When God Writes the Love Story

“Can love really happen like that?”

I’d noticed the young girl’s sad demeanor even before I settled into the chair. For a split second, I was irritated, not wanting anything to mar the joy I felt at finding love after nine and a half years of loneliness. I’d asked for a more experienced student at the beauty college. Why did I have to be assigned to one who evidently had some personal issues to deal with when all I wanted was to look good for my wedding?

She’d done well faking through small talk until that moment when her voice lowered with intensity after I announced I was getting married and began telling her about the whirlwind romance, our certainty in our love and the quick engagement that would result in marriage a month and a half after our first meeting.

“Can love really happen like that?” she repeated before adding “Because I thought I was in love for two years and he just broke up with me. It turns out he wasn’t who I thought he was.”

I paused, silently uttering a prayer that God would give me the words she needed to hear.

“Yes, it can happen like that, if God is in it from the beginning. We pray together before each of our dates.”

She was silent as she worked the color through my hair. I wondered if I’d said the wrong thing, bringing up prayer and faith.

“He never prayed with me,” she finally said, so softly it was as if she was talking to herself. Our eyes met in the mirror. “I asked him to, but he wouldn’t,” she continued. “He wouldn’t go to church with me, either. I used to sing in the church choir, loved singing worship songs.”

Loved, as if there were no more worship songs in her life. We both fell silent until she continued.

“I wrote a prayer to my future husband once. I even wrote out a list of what I wanted in the perfect man. I thought I’d found him. But he wasn’t who he pretended to be.”

What were the odds that I’d end up in the chair of a young woman who had done what I had done? I was convinced. I wasn’t there for the haircut and color. I was there for her.

I told her about God asking me to pray for my future husband in the summer of 2018 because the man God had in mind for me was going through something rough. How I’d followed that prompting, transcribing a prayer in my journal so private, I’d covered it up.

I told her how I’d wonder in the ensuing three years if I’d imagined the prompting as I waited for the man God had promised me. That I’d also made a list of all the qualities I wanted in a man. I told her how Nick’s wife died in the spring of 2018. “That summer was one of the hardest times in his life,” I said, choking back tears. Her eyes widened. “He has every quality I asked for: the kind eyes, the broad shoulders, the desire for holding hands and hugging, all the way down to the neatly trimmed goatee beard he’d begun sporting shortly before I met him.”

I went silent as she worked intently on my hair. What else could I say to this wounded girl? I closed my eyes, praying.

“Will you do me a favor?” I opened my eyes and saw her nod in the mirror. “Next time you begin a relationship, will you ask him to pray with you?”

Tears sprung to her eyes as she nodded again.

“And this time, if he says no, run the other way?”

“Do you think I can have a love story like yours?” her voice was husky with longing and unshed tears.

“I know you can. And I want to hear about your love story when it happens.”

“I think God put you in my chair today,” my young friend said.

“I think so too.”

We hugged before I left.

I immediately called Nick when I got into my car.

“How did your hair turn out?” he asked.

“I don’t know, because I don’t think I was there for my hair,” I began crying as I related the encounter. My cries turned into sobs, and I could barely speak past the lump forming in my throat.

“Just think; this is what our life is going to be like together, as long as we put God at the forefront. Random encounters that are not random at all, as we grow in faith together. God brought us together and God can use us together in so many ways.”

On August 23, 2021, three years and one day after the day I wrote down a prayer for the man who would someday be my husband, I married him in the woods I’d found solace in during the pandemic, the land where I grew up that my son now owns.