I was born and raised in the Nazarene Church. I don't remember a time when we were not at church every time the doors were open and some when we let ourselves in. Sunday School, Sunday Morning Services and if there was a Fellowship after we stayed, Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting with choir practice to follow with us kids doing homework in the kindergarten classroom, and since my parents were the custodians for a period of time we spent most of every Saturday there too.

I remember the first Bible verse I learned in that kindergarten classroom. "I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord." And I was glad, all except for some Saturdays when I had to help clean bathrooms! When I got old enough to qualify, I got my teaching certificate and was the youngest Sunday School teacher they had ever had. I had three year olds for so long I started to think that maybe yellow crayons might really taste good! I was in the junior choir, the teen choir "The Young and the Free" and we traveled to other Nazarene churches presenting musicals like Bill and Gloria Gather's "He Lives", I was never asked if I wanted to be in any of the holiday plays but was just handed a script with my part marked and I was in the adult choir. When the church started a scouting program for grade school kids, I was back in church on Saturday back in the nursery with all the worker's children. I taught a Bible school class every summer while I was in high school. Third graders are harder to deal with than three year olds! I belonged to the Bible club at school. At senior high camp I felt a call on my life and I said yes. I got married in the church with all the people I loved surrounding me.

Sounds really great doesn't it? Well, it was far from great, because you see, I didn't really get it. Oh, I had moments when I really felt like I was close to God and I managed to follow the rules closely. And there were a lot of them. No movies, no dancing, no swimming when boys and girls are together, don't wear slacks in the sanctuary, don't wear too much make up, don't pierce your ears, but please have fun while you aren't doing any of these things. I learned how to smile and nod and say the right words when someone was looking and then turn around to do just what I pleased when no one was looking.

You see, despite all my participation, I felt like I never belonged anywhere. Not at home, not at school and especially not at church. I still loved being there because it was God's house. And as wayward as I was, I still loved God. It was all in my head, head knowledge. I loved God in my heart, but I just didn't get it.

I did what I pleased through two marriages, both of them to unsaved men. Divorce, alcohol, trying to find love in the arms of men who only wanted to use me and a steady stream of new hobbies - none of those made me feel like I was loved, like I belonged anywhere. I married a third time. Again to an unsaved man. I was back to studying my Bible and praying regularly and he promised that when he got a job with Sundays off he would go to church with me. That never happened. We fought terribly the first two years and then I made a decision to let him lead the family, that I would sit down and shut up and let him take control. It was a disaster. He wouldn't lead and I was left in a quagmire of indecision all the time. He refused to attend church with me. He didn't want to pay the bills and we lost our home. Ultimately, he left me for another woman just short of 17 years after we married.

I thought I would die at first and I would have, I think from shame and embarrassment because he flaunted his new woman in the faces of all our friends and family before most of them even knew he wasn't living with me anymore. But I didn't and you know why? Because God was there. He was always there. Somewhere between learning that first Bible verse and trying to keep three year olds from eating yellow crayons, I bowed my childish head and gave my heart to God. There was no mountain top experience, no bright lights, no big voices, and no music swelled. In that one tender moment of a little girl wanting to belong to someone who loved her, God understood the intention of my heart and claimed me. He never let go. Not through all the headstrong disobedience, not through the cycle of sin and shame and the feeling that I thought was guilt but was really conviction, He did not let go. When I was dancing on the edges events that could have ruined my life forever, He pushed me away from them with sudden fear of what I was doing. Through it all, I would crawl back to Him and try my hardest to do better. I still didn't get it.

All that began changing during the middle of that third disastrous marriage. First came the idea that I should submit to my husband. Even though he wasn't the leader I needed, God used that to break off a lot of my tendency to say yes to whatever that husband asked me to do and then do what I wanted anyway.

Then I got a letter from my Grandmother telling me that I should be getting right with God because He promised her that she would live to see His return. I was terrified. Bless her heart, it worked. I started crawling. But this time it was slow because I was married to a man who did not like the idea of his woman getting "all churchy" and I fell down a lot. Sometimes it was a long time before I remembered to ask God to help me back up, but He was right there waiting and I got back up.

But then God stepped up the pace. I was working with a woman who was from the same church I was raised in. She was talking about this great new thing that our church was doing. They were going to have a huge Easter Service at the Civic Center and invite the whole community. She persuaded me to go and even came and got me that morning so I couldn't back out. It was a great fun service and I was having a really good time, seeing people that I hadn't seen in years. Then a young man took the stage and some really great music began. Transfixed, I watched him perform a pantomime with the piece that was playing. It was Carman's "The Champion". I fell quietly apart and started to get it. I filled out the visitor's card, cause I still felt like I didn't belong even though a member since 13 years old, and I marked the spot that said "I am rededicating my life to God." And God said, "I will hold you to that, you know." I turned it in. I went home and started studying my Bible, taking my kids to church every Sunday and watching Christian television. One day while I was watching one of the half a dozen half hour shows I watched pretty regularly there was a nice looking young man talking about this movie he just finished making. He talked about how hard the movie was to make and how much closer to God it brought him. Then they showed a clip of Jesus talking to the little children, you know the story, "Suffer the little children" and Jesus was laughing. Loud joyous laughter. I started crying. I knew Jesus wept. But laughed? I was suddenly infused with this understanding, HE WAS REAL! Then they showed a clip of the crucifixion. It was horrible, brutal and that Jesus I just saw laughing cried in pain just like my heart did. I sobbed for hours. I got it. I finally got it. In the laughter and cries of pain Jesus sent His love straight into my heart and I got it. I never want to lose it.

But God wasn't done yet. I still had a struggle with the man I was married to. He had the worst fit of rage I ever witnessed when he found out that I had been tithing his money. I stopped in fear of his temper, he never hit me, but I couldn't be sure he would not someday. Then he started making fun of me for reading my Bible and praying so much. I fell down a lot then, mostly because of depression and fear that I was going to lose my husband. In spite of his temper and denial of God (while still saying "oh, I believe in The Man Upstairs"), I loved him with all my heart. Up until the day he walked out on me I thought he was a decent honest man.

I thought I would die, I wanted to certainly in the first few days after he left. But I prayed a little prayer asking God to give me courage and strength and to give my husband peace and a clear mind. Two loving arms surrounded me and I felt Him put my heart back together. He didn't mend it perfectly, He made it functional. He left some of the work for a human tool to complete. I didn't have a job. God helped me find two. My bills were all behind, He helped me pay them all current. Still I wanted my husband to come home. I went into a depression when I realized he wasn't ever going to come back. But God was still there, sending me friends to make me laugh and work to keep me busy.

One day in the middle of a quiet time with God, He told me he wanted to remind me of something. In another time of quiet contemplation, I had been thinking about how much closer I wanted to be to God and I couldn't understand why my earnest efforts were not doing me any good. I told God that I didn't know what was standing in my way but whatever it was please get rid of it, it had to go. Then I understood. It was my waffling back and forth between my desire to keep my husband and my desire to seek God, that was holding me back. It was in that "whatever it is" that God found my surrender to Him and he let the husband of the woman my husband was having an affair with find them out and forced my husband's hand. He moved out of my house and in with her.

The day I prayed for courage and strength, God answered my prayer and He added peace. I became happier than I had been in a long time. Then God gave me a miracle that I didn't even dare ask for. He sent to me a real man. A man who loved Jesus long before he saw my picture and wanted to make me smile because I looked so sad in that picture. He sent a man who loves Jesus enough to let himself be used as human tool to smooth out those lines of pain God left on my heart for his human love to fix. Ian's gentle love and loud joyous laughter are tools well used. God has been so good. I am blessed by God's pursuit of me and so glad to be caught up in His arms. When I finally got it, I got it all!

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Leah