From Homecoming King, To Homeschooling Dad - Part 7: Striving Together

In part 6 of this series, I shared about my wife Colleen being my help meet. From that standpoint, God has truly blessed me. Colleen has fulfilled and continues to fulfill the position God intended for her in our family. Her willingness to submit to the Lord, rise up and be a Godly wife and mother is not an easy task I admit, but it is a blessing as she would share if asked. Actually, her walk with the Lord which has made her what she is today started just a few weeks before we got married.

As I have shared throughout this blog series, I came to the knowledge of my sins and repented of them on November 17, 2002. Over the course of the next year after I was saved, Colleen witnessed a change in me like never before. You see, when somebody truly repents of their sins, there will be a change in their heart first and then in their outward life. This is due to the fact that "repent" means to make a change! The amazing thing about the change I experienced was that I didn't change myself, Jesus Christ changed me from the inside out.

So back to Colleen, she witnessed a drastic change in my life. She knew the things I was involved with (sin) and how I acted (sinful) previously and then saw the difference after Jesus came into my heart. During that time,  she began to evaluate her own life with respect to God's Word. Then almost a year later and just a few weeks before we were married, we assembled for worship service at a revival.

I will never forget that night. It was a Thursday night and the visiting minister really stirred up our hearts with the truth.  It came time for the alter call which provides an opportunity for people to pray to the Lord publicly. The visiting minister had concluded his sermon and my Grandfather (which was our pastor) said a few words before the first alter call. Then the music played and some people came to the alter to meet the Lord. After that the service usually ends, however that night the visiting minister asked my Grandfather if he could say a few more words. Well, those few more words is what did it for Colleen. I recall the visiting minister state that we may never get another opportunity to make things right with God and tonight was the night we are promised. The music played again for a second alter call and Colleen stepped forward to give her heart to the Lord! It was truly remarkable because if you know Colleen, she doesn't like attention on herself. However the Holy Spirit had spoken to her heart and she chose to follow Him, not her own desires.

Since that night, we have worked together in our marriage and in our parenting. We have strived together. This is so important for every marriage. Husband and wife serving God TOGETHER! There are so many marriages that this is not the case, however it could be if only each spouse would listen to the Lord! I am so thankful that I have Colleen in my life and that both of us are saved and serving God. I am thankful we started serving God together from the beginning of our marriage. I am so thankful we are in one accord with the things of God. Do we see eye-to-eye on everything? No. Do we have disagreements? Sure! However since we both love God and want to please Him, we are able to move forward together instead of her doing her "thing" and me doing my "thing"!

In the end, we desire to strive together to be the best child of God, husband, wife, father, and mother we can be! And as my Nana always says, if we do our best, God will do the rest!