any other way

I'm going to try to do the condensed version but I thought I'd share a little of how My Beloved and I came to be married 10 years ago, TODAY!

I was 18 years old in January of 1997, diligently pursuing God after a period of turmoil-y months, the fall before. Our church had been seeking God corporately, 6 nights a week for quite a while and often had special speakers in for several days at a time.

Towards the end of January 1997, Jeff Collins came to minister for several days and brought along 'his new assistant'. This assistant just began a 40 day fast, seeking God for his place in life, in ministry and a wife to share it all with. I met him as an amazing man of God who ministered very accurately in the prophetic realm. I was smitten.

Over the next week (the 'several days of meetings' ended up going 6 weeks) I joked about having a crush on this mighty man of God. All the ladies in church had their guesses as to how old he was. (whether he would be eligible for me or not :o>)

We found out Mr. Prophet also could play the guitar so it was decided that he would lead worship with me for the Sunday night meeting. We decided to practice that afternoon. Somewhere in the midst of hashing out chord progressions, the Spirit of God fell heavily on the two of us alone in the sanctuary.

After sitting in the presence of God for a while, we decided to take a break and retreated to the church kitchen. We began talking about 'what just happened' and continued that talk as he drove me home. In that short amount of time that afternoon, we pretty much decided we were in this forever or not at all.

By the end of February, when the six weeks of meetings were finally ending, Jeff Collins was moving on and My Beloved and I were in a serious relationship. Now what? My pastor decided to hire my husband-to-be as Worship Pastor and we were officially engaged on March 3rd. We set a wedding date of June 14th.

And, as they say, the rest is history. At 19 years old, I married this amazing, prophetic, worship-leading man of God (who was 35 years old). He fit the 'dark haired, blue eyed, worship leader' description I had for my dream husband and I guess I fit his 'hot woman who loved God and didn't have weird feet' description!

Awhile back we had a prophetic 'picture' spoken over us that is so descriptive of our life together. A man said he saw my husband with only half a suit of armor on. But then he saw me and I was wearing the other half. So when we came together, we were a whole suit of armor. We believe we can accomplish more to the glory of God together than we ever could apart. We enjoy each other and enjoy doing life together. I can't imagine it any other way. I am truly blessed to have the love of a man that is such a picture of Jesus to me.

And that, my friends, is my anniversary story in a nutshell, well maybe a coconut shell!