LIFE'S HOPE: Julene's Blog

Before I could drive, I had two good friends who would walk a mile with me to school. The one friend walked a mile before she even met up with me because she didn’t want to get on the school bus full of bullies. This friend came from one of those traditional families that I admired so much. It was even her mother who drove me to the hospital when I fell and cracked my head while ice skating.

When we were 19, this friend called me to ask if her brother could hang out with us that evening because he had just been discharged from the Navy. I said yes and as soon as I hung up the phone, I looked him up in the yearbook to get another look at this mysterious brother of hers that I had only seen from a distance. I was already wondering if it would be possible to become part of a family that actually ate together, played together, supported, and loved one another.

It turned out that he went dancing with us every weekend. I got to know him and saw that he had a good heart. It did not take long for his sister and me to concoct a plan to get him to drive me home. After dancing, we always went out to eat chow mein. One evening I told my friend (while making it loud and obvious across the table) that I needed to get home early that evening because I had homework to do. My friend acted as though that was a problem for her and so my valiant husband to-be stepped in to offer me a ride. That was just the beginning. We had a wonderful conversation and discovered we had a lot in common. Most importantly, I learned that he had actually attended church in the past and believed in God. He did not yet know that he could have a relationship with God through Jesus but at least he was not turned off or hostile towards religion. This was the first time I dated anyone who didn’t ridicule my belief in God.

After two years of dating, we decided to get married at the Lutheran church where I was confirmed. Although I had not gone to church for many years, I still felt drawn to read my Bible every night before going to bed. However, I did not preach at my husband. I just kept myself accountable in my search for God’s guidance and continued to pray and wait on God.

A little over a year after we were married, we moved into our first house and I knew I had to find a Bible believing church. Then, almost the next week, the men from Coon Rapids Baptist Church knocked on our door to welcome us to the neighborhood and I invited them to come in as though I had already been waiting for them. We started attending their church and my husband accepted Christ as his savior in 1983 — 10 years after I had. That is when God answered the prayers of an 11-year-old child who begged for a Christian home. I was finally able to dedicate my life to Christ and get baptized in front of the church with my husband. And so, I was ready to get started establishing the life I had always wanted (Psalm 71:19-20).

Little did I know how much God had planned for me and how much it would take to break down the walls of protection that I had built. In my next post, I will tell how God taught me to cry and melted my heart through the birth of premature twins.