I’ve been delving into prayer a lot more the last few months than I have in a long time. I’m not sure if it has to do with becoming a mom and you worry about 10,000 new things or I’m inspired by the praying people in my life. I’m sure its a combo of both.
I’ve been reading a few “The Power of Praying” books by Stormie Omartian and they have been so helpful. I started with The Power of A Praying Wife and read one chapter every night for a month. Now my husband and I are reading The Power of a Praying Parent most nights. Through reading these books I realized that I’m not very good at praying! I know we don’t have to have ‘good’ prayers in order for God to hear them but I just felt like mine were lacking in power and strength. Maybe that’s why the disciples asked Jesus to ‘teach us to pray.” Maybe they wanted strength in their prayers. My prayers were especially lacking in scriptures. I noticed this a lot while I read the author’s prayers in her books. So while I’m currently working on growing in my praying, I have been thinking about different prayers the Lord has answered in my life over the years. I have journals full of prayers, many answered, and some still waiting. I thought I’d share a story of an answered prayer in mine and my husband’s life with you.
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My husband, David, and I started dating in June 2013 and we got engaged later that year in November. We were both the type of people that were ready to jump into the commitment of marriage early on so getting engaged after 6 months of dating was right for us. Our dating relationship was good and fun but the day after we got engaged we felt a huge weight upon us.
David is Canadian so that comes with a few more challenges with visas, green cards, etc. The visas can take a while to process so we had to make a decision right away. The day after we were engaged we jumped into lengthy conversations about which country, Canada or the US, we were going to live in, how much it would cost for visas, wait times, and other requirements. It’s all a very complicated process and I’m so glad we hired an immigration lawyer. (By the way, if you need his name and number let me know. He is very affordable and awesome. We have 5 other couple-friends that have used him and he’s great!)
One of the things that was hard to determine was our wedding date. Initially we wanted a 3-4 month engagement but we soon realized that we were going to need a much longer engagement. This was due to multiple factors but mainly because the visa was going to take 6 months to a year for David to obtain in order to live in the US. There were no guarantees on when the visa would finish processing it was just an estimated time.
I had arbitrarily chosen the first weekend in September 2014 to get married, just before leaving on a road trip in March. As I was getting into the car to leave for the trip I felt the Lord ask me if I’d be willing to change the date. Reluctantly I said yes, even though I was growing tired of waiting to get married. I prayed and asked what the new date would be and felt the Lord say November 1st. Extending the wedding date even longer felt like agony to me at the time but I decided to run with it.
Every day the thought of David’s fiancé visa was on my mind. It would allow him to legally get married in the US and live there before and after the wedding. It would also roll over to a green card with some extra paper work once we were married. Without it, he wouldn’t be able to stay in the US. There was also a possibility that if we got married without it, we could be separated. I prayed often for the visa to show up at the right time and for all our paperwork to go smoothly and nothing to get misplaced or forgotten. I had a strong sense of peace over me as we planned for our wedding. I knew that saying yes to a November wedding was saying yes to God’s timing for our marriage. It gave me confidence. Through the Lord’s peace upon me, I did not doubt that we were going to get the visa on time.
As the months and weeks drew nearer and nearer to our wedding we still had not received the visa. Two weeks before the wedding and it was still not in our hands. Our invites had been sent out, venues rented, food prepared, dresses purchased, honeymoon booked, and every other detail that goes into a wedding had been accounted for. On October 23rd 2014, 11 days before our wedding, the visa was granted and David moved to Washington with all his things the next day. We got married on November 1st and it was a beautiful testament to the Lord’s faithfulness in so many ways, including this story.
Having an 11 month engagement was nothing I would have chosen but it was so good for so many reasons. David and I were both able to work longer and save up for our new lives together (knowing that David wouldn’t be able to work for 3 months after our wedding while MORE paperwork processed – but that’s another story!) The long engagement allowed us to get to know each other’s families more before getting married, which proved to be an important thing for both of us. We were also able to get to know each other more. Most of our dating and engagement relationship was long distance and we would just talk for hours at a time. That is something we would not have done if we had the opportunity to go to movies, hang out with friends, go on dates etc. That was an awesome time for us to really dig our heels in and find out who the other was – sometimes I miss those days of just talking and talking!
I love seeing God’s answers to our prayers. We don’t always get to see them right away or some times not at all. But the ones we do get to see answered are so amazing that they have to be shared. I have so many prayers that have been answered over the years, it was hard to choose just one. But I chose this story because it was so meaningful and perfect for me that it seemed fitting to share.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Matt. 7:7
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