Friendships and Verses on Trees, an Unlikely Love Story

I just finished the book, The Scent of Water, by Naomi Zacharias, Ravi Zacharias' daughter.  I picked it up at the art show she put on a couple of weeks ago when I went down with my daughter.  I really loved it.  I had no idea what her story was or why she had written it, but once I started it, it was hard to put down.

The reason I loved it so much was because I could relate to her so well.  I did not go through the same struggles that she experienced in her life, but I related to how she learned so much about life and who she was by just the people she met.  Each chapter she introduced a new character, but a real life person, not fictional, and each time, she reflected on the lesson that that person taught her.  Each person brought her to a new realization of who she is in Christ's eyes, not in the lies she has believed.  Naomi experienced wounds in her life from past relationships and she felt so deeply hurt that she wondered if it was possible to ever be healed, but one by one, another person came into her life that helped heal the wound.

It wasn't the same for me in the sense of being wounded, but it was the same for me in the sense that each friendship that God brought into my life, made it more and more clear who I was to marry.  I was so confused for such a long time.  Somehow I had developed strange thoughts about what kind of person was "my type", so that when the right person came along I nearly missed him.

One night, in the midst of my confusion, I had the epiphany of a lifetime.  It was as if my whole life of friendships passed before my eyes.  Since my first year of university I had lived with a different girl for 5 years.  Each girl had become one of my closest friends as so often happens with roommates.  Each girl understood me and was a true compliment to my personality.  We were able to share our most intimate fears and dreams and in all cases, there had been a spiritual element where faith had always been easily discussed making the friendship even deeper.  All of them were quieter than I was, more organized, thoughtful, kind, more reserved, steady.  I tended to be the louder, more outgoing, crazy, less-organized person in the friendship.  Yet, somehow because of that, we always clicked.  I had joked with one my these women that I just needed to marry a male version of her!

When my husband-to-be came along, I was still in my state of confusion.  How I prayed for clarity.  He had come to visit me in South America where I was teaching at the time.  He had mentioned the "marry" word without proposing.  I freaked out in my head and made it very clear to him that I wasn't sure, didn't know, was so confused.  Poor guy had flown all that way just to leave behind a confused soul who appeared very wishy-washy.

My parents had sent me "cassettes" of sermons from my pastor back at home.  I took the time to listen to one after RM left.  It was on Jeremiah.  I came across chapter 17,

“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
    whose confidence is in him.8 They will be like a tree planted by the water    that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;    its leaves are always green.It has no worries in a year of drought    and never fails to bear fruit.”

Suddenly, I knew I was supposed to marry RM - he was the tree.  He was my tree.  He had roots that went deep.  He had no fear of heat or drought.  I had presented every single reason to him why I shouldn't or couldn't marry him and he didn't flinch.  I had been a wishy-washy, crazy person, and he stayed strong (he'd purchased the ring months earlier without me knowing).  Every time I presented a fear, a concern, a worry, he would confidently reassure me.  There was nothing I could do or say to make him upset.  He always, always, always stood firm in his resolve to care for me and just like the verse described, his "leaves" were "always green", he had "no worries" and he never failed "to bear fruit".  The image of him as a tree made so much sense.  He trusted in the Lord.  His confidence was in Him.  How else could his strength of character be explained?!  His roots were so deep that nothing, absolutely nothing could shake him.  Guess what a person needs who is easily shaken?  Someone who is NOT easily shaken - a human tree!  He was somehow, amazingly, willing to stand beside me no matter how long it took to get my thinking straight.  It was at that moment after reading that verse that the thought occurred to me (I can only think God brought that thought to my head) to reflect on all my past friendships and not just the acquaintances I knew, but my deepest, closest, best friends.....it was almost like my jaw dropped open....they were literally all female versions of him.  As I thought of each woman and what I had most appreciated about them, I knew God had used them in my life to point me to RM.   I knew if I married him, I would literally be marrying my best friend in the whole world.  He was all of their best characteristics wrapped into one human being that I knew I had to marry.

Even though he had just left, I had to call him and let him know.  I'm sure he sighed a HUGE sigh of relief that I wasn't completely nuts and that, by God's grace, I had come around.  When he had left Colombia that week, he wasn't 100% sure I would.  

We had gone on our first date in June 18, 1994.  I had left for Colombia 6 weeks later.  He visited me in October.  I had my epiphany right after he left that week in October.  I arrived home in December for a few weeks.  He proposed Jan. 6, 1995.  I left to go back to Colombia, only to return that June.  We were married Sept. 1, 1995.  We were in each other's presence a mere 13 weeks before he proposed.  A fairly fast timeline, but I knew 100% he was EXACTLY who I was supposed to marry.  Everyone knew.  It seemed to take me a while to figure it out, but that's only because I had to get rid of my faulty thinking first.  Once I did, by God's grace, there was no turning back.

When I closed Naomi's book, I realized I could have written one, too. I could easily have described how God used each friendship to teach me something I didn't even know I needed to learn when I had first met them.  I didn't know how God was using each woman, each circumstance that brought our friendship together, for good.  God used these friendships to help confirm and clarify my most important friendship and relationship this side of heaven.  He took me literally across the ocean twice to meet certain women that would lead me to my perfect mate.  It's interesting to note, those women love RM and have more in common with him in certain areas than even I do when they get into specific conversations.  This makes complete sense because they are the same type of people!

When Naomi was travelling the world and she would meet each person, she didn't know how God was going to use them in her life.  It was in her reflecting that God showed her the lesson she was supposed to take away.  This is the power of journaling, writing, praying, reading.  It helps bring clarity to the confused soul.

When I think about my life and I read about another woman's life and the people God used in her's and mine, it reassures me that God is going to use other people in my own children's lives to bring them clarity where they have confusion and that He is going to use all of their life circumstances to teach them lessons.......if, and this is a big IF, if they choose to stop and reflect and ask God to show them what they were supposed to learn.  Would I have heard God's voice if I hadn't sat there with my Bible open, begging for clarity?  I think it goes back to the verse from Proverbs 25:2, "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings."  If I hadn't taken the time to "search out" the matter, I would have most certainly missed out on this person I can now happily, gratefully, call my husband.  My prayer for my children is that they, too, will search out this all important matter, that they will reflect, that they will consider all that God allows them to go through in order to learn these all important life lessons that can ultimately lead to who they are supposed to marry.  It might not look exactly the same way that my searching happened, but whatever they do, I trust that they won't miss what God intends for their good.  It would have easy for me to overlook.  I'm so grateful that God heard my cries for clarity and showed me so clearly, in such an amazing combination of ways, Scripture and past friendships, to confirm who I was to marry.  This year we will celebrate 25 years of marriage.  Amazing.