I've been married 4 times. The first three rejections hurt like hell but I knew in my bones I had to keep trying.
After the third loss I had to take on $13,000 in credit card debt. I totaled my car on the way to work and learned the hard lesson about Gap Insurance. The 13k turned into 16k in a minute.
So, I stayed alone in an apartment in Irving working two jobs.
Those five years helped me heal and forgive those that hurt me to my core. I was ready to receive that which I felt God had for me. I prayed and waited until one day at the part-time job delivering a pizza and walking back to the car I got a gun stuck in my face for the second time.
A thought popped in my head when I got back in my car that this is the last pizza I would ever deliver. But then I thought I still had $5,000 left in debt. The message was clear, it's time. I went back to the store and finished the night making pizzas and washing dishes. After closing I never went back.
After five years being alone, working two jobs, praying and crying myself to sleep every night I felt something was going to change.
I grew up in the church. My earliest memory is kneeling beside the bed to prey before sleep. Mom took us to catechism class on Saturdays and we went through confirmation. I learned to pray for God's will to be done and to pray for opportunity, and wait. I waited a long time.
I can't say God speaks to me. It's more like a thought pops into my head and the thought I had was it was time, now that I "was told" to quit my part-time job.
I joined a dating website. You put your profile in and some pictures and you start a search. You find someone you want to meet and you send her a "wink'. She gets your "wink" and looks over your info and if she is agreeable she "winks" back. This mutual agreement allows the two of you to correspond, talk via messaging or phone and set up a meet.
I started my search for women my age, two years younger and two years older, within 10 miles from my zip code. The results were not good, reading profiles and looking at their pictures, I was not impressed.
I changed the search parameter to that of woman 10 years younger than me and I had twice as many woman to look at than those my age and I was really impressed.
There was this one woman. Her eyes seemed to be looking at me and her smile hit me like a brick making me wish I was younger. In my mind she was beautiful and would never agree to date an old graying guy like me that was in debt, renting an apartment and had a negative net worth. After all, she was eight years younger.
I went to bed telling the Lord my dilemma.
The next day all I thought about was getting home and logging on to that website to just see her picture again. I just wanted to look and dream and make my dinner and go to sleep. But she sent me a wink.
She sent me a wink. Of course I winked back. She gave me an old flip phone she had, my first ever cell phone, and she added me to her plan. We talked for hours. We lived together for months and after about nine I gave up the apartment. We got married and it's been 21 years I have known her.
To this day I still pray. I still count the many blessings He rained down upon me. Being retired at 63, debt free with an income greater than I had working. It blows my mind.
I'll skip over all the struggles we endured because for most of us it isn't ever easy and we are no exception.
Nothing I have today would be possible without my mirror. And it definitely would not have happened without answered prayer. She is my girl, entrusted to me by the One I've prayed to from my earliest memory.
God is good. God is great. He is always there. He is waiting to bless those who love Him.
