Before I say anything at all, I wanted to touch base on something my entire team is dealing with at the moment. We had to leave our ministry site for the week a day early because we all started getting rashes and boils and blisters. We aren’t sure what is going on… one doctor is saying one thing but the rash isn’t responding the way it should to the medicine that she gave us. So please keep Exuberant Peace in your prayers. The reason I am not blogging about our health issues today is because I believe God is teaching me something even greater than having joy in Him even when in pain… even though us having joy right now is an amazing thing too!!
What I did want to write about was the story of Padma Pal, a child bride turned missionary! Padma was a Hindu by birth and religion and was 12 years old when she was married. She married a man 10 years older than her… but he was a Christian man. She told me the story of how she came to Christ and the story was so amazing to me that I felt I HAD to share it.
I met Padma and her husband Pastor Pal in a small village in southern India at a ministry site that we were sent to and through her testimony, God showed me how He loves us all! Padma married Pastor Pal through an arranged marriage and followed him into ministry, even though she was still believed in her Hindu religion. But she told me that she watched her husband and saw how he differed from other Indian men. She said that he loved her unconditionally, even though she believed in a different religion. She said the way he loved her and others brought her to Christ. She was 16 when she became a born again Christian. It took her 4 years to finally come to Christ, but what a testimony of love!! Through the love of her Groom, she believed! She is the only one in her entire family (YET) who is a Christian and it was all because she married a Christian man.
We look at the child brides as something akin to horror, but for her it turned out to be the best thing in her life. What if she would have married a Hindu man? What would her life look like now? Would she have ever come to know her Lord and King? The smile on her face when she talked about her life now just showed the love of Christ shining though! Because of where God took them both, they were able to open a home for 10 Covenant Children’s Home girls who now know Jesus Christ. The girls are getting an amazing education including learning English and also what it means to follow Christ. None of this would have happened if not for the Love of her Groom!
How well does that portray our relationship with God?!? We, who sin and fall short and backslide; we who fight with Him and don’t want to accept the words He speaks over us; we who have been married to Him for years and have yet to give our hearts fully over to Him… We are the Bride of Christ. Through the Love He shows us and leads us and romances us, we fall in love with His ways. We see the heart He has for us and can’t help but follow. Through the unconditional love of our Groom, we learn what it means to love and be loved!
My Groom is romancing me all over again… and over and over and over again! Even in this hard time right now with not knowing what is happening to my body, He is romancing me and giving me sweet kisses of revelation and devotion. He is devoted to me and showing me what it means to love unconditionally, even in pain. He is revealing His heart to me with whispers of love and His tender mercies when I don’t want to keep going. This is only week two on the World Race, but already I feel His love deeper than ever before. I feel His grace and mercy and yes, unconditional, irrevocable, sustaining, tender love. He is my Beloved Groom… How can I not say yes to Him? How can I not follow Him? How can I not fall in love with Him? It is in the very fiber of my being… it is in the air I breathe… it beats deep within my heart.
All for the Love of her Groom, she said YES!!
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfort to her. I will give her vineyards from there, and the Valley of Achor as a door of hope; she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth as in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt. And it shall be, in that day, Says the Lord, that you will call Me ‘Husband’ and no longer ‘Master’ … I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and justice, in lovingkindness and mercy; I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord.” Hosea 2:14-16 and 19-20
