For This Man I Prayed… and Waited… and Wrote… {Part 2}

 For Part 1, click here.  🙂

Part 2 ~ Continuing the repost from 2012

A few pages from my “Husband’s Journal”

Praying… and waiting {albeit not always with the  greatest of patience}… and writing in my husband’s journal seemed to somewhat satisfy the angst in my soul to find that promised “ministry-man” from the Lord.  Looking back, I was young.  Really young.  But at the time, when most of my college friends were already married, and many of my single friends had rings on their fingers, it seemed like God had forgotten me and my “pious” dedication to trust Him with finding me a husband.  I thought I was past my prime.  So I often tried to “help God along” …  always to no avail.  Others tried to help God and me find my man, and that never worked out either.  Except one time.

And once was all that was needed.

I had a list in my prayer journal of the names of potential “blind dates” that my friends had arranged for me.  It was generally the same repeated conversation – “You’re a nice girl.  He’s a nice guy.  You two should meet.”  And we would.  And sometimes we’d meet and become great friends.  Other times, it just wouldn’t work out.  But always, I’d write the nice guy’s name down on my page of “possibilities” in my prayer journal.

See, I felt that if God allowed this man to cross my life enough for me to possibly spend even one evening with him, then God had crossed our lives for some purpose.  Because of that knowledge, I could invest in what God was doing in his life by praying for him.  Every time a name was given to me as a “nice guy you should meet,” I’d write his name on my list. (If he had qualities I especially liked, I’d put a star by his name. haha.  I had this down to a science!)

Every so often, I’d turn to that page of possibilities and pray through the names written there.  Though some of these blind dates never materialized, I still prayed for the guy.  It was kind of like being a secret pal to someone – investing in a life I knew nothing about, but one that God cared deeply about – deeply enough to bring his name to my list.

On a cold January day in 1992, I was in a doctor’s office in Memphis, TN – waiting on the doctor to sign a release form because he was sending me home from my teaching job for a month’s leave. {That story is here.} I was very sick at the time and could no longer function as normal.  Also in that waiting room was the  mom of a little boy I had in my classroom several years earlier.  She recognized me and we chatted.

Then she said those familiar words: “I have someone I want you to meet.”  She told me how God had put me on her heart for him, and him for me… and how he was a nice Godly guy and I was a nice Godly girl and how we’d be great together.  blah blah blah.  Not that I didn’t care, but I was tired.  Physically sick and tired, and spiritually tired and weary of waiting and of praying and of writing.  Inwardly I groaned.  But outwardly, I let her tell me the name of this guy and said that I’d pray about it and pray for him.

When I got back to my prayer journal, I had one line left on that “possibility” page.  ONE LINE, y’all!

And guess whose name I wrote on that one line!!!?

You guessed it!

James Walker.

I left to go to MS to my parent’s home for my month of bed rest.  And while I was there, I kept praying… and waiting… and writing…

“And let us not lose heart and grow weary and faint
in acting nobly and doing right,
for in due time
and at the appointed season
we shall reap,
if we do not loosen and relax our courage and faint.”
Galatians 6:9 AMP

Check out the hair: both on my head and on James’ face! hahaha

Part 3, tomorrow. 🙂

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