The Early Years

In my early days with the Lord, Holy Spirit was dealing with me and revealing areas of

my life that were not in line with His Word - specifically in the area of fornication. I had given this area of my life to God and consecrated myself in body after being convicted by the Spirit. Shortly after this decision (because God had given me the power, I just had to understand this was unpleasing to Him and was sin), I met a man of my dreams in college. He was everything I wanted - very intelligent, good looking, and a gentleman who was working on a law degree at the same school. He was different than others I met. We dated for a long time and he never pressured me into sex and treated me with dignity and respect. I had shared my faith with him and he seemed to be receptive. To this day, I sincerely believe he was my first love. As time went on, he would occasionally throw hints regarding me sleeping over at his apartment. I would always play it off, but never addressed it head on. Finally on a Valentine Day of all days, we discussed it and I laid down the ground rule- no sex under any circumstances outside of marriage. I threw out an ultimatum to him and said that maybe we should part company, expecting that he would respond that this was not something what he wanted to do. Needless to say, he walked away even though he was very gentle and still behaved as a gentleman. I felt crushed and let down. God spoke to me that night and I can still picture where I was, what was around me and the place as if it were only a few years ago. He gave me a scripture from 2 Timothy 2:3-4. To this day I continue to use this scripture day by day. It reads, ‘You must therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.’ I came to understand that, I would need to let it go and move on. I did not have time to get caught up in self-pity and reliance upon a person. The second thing He let me know was that at some point in time, this young man would be back around. I venture to say about a year later, it came to pass. He had begun going to church regularly and more importantly professed to have a personal relationshp with Jesus Christ. He even borrowed a book from me by Paul Little called "How To Give Your Faith Away". We remained friends, for it was not the plan of God for us to go any further.