A Story.

Okay, so if you know me you know how much I love TV shows on DVD. While I was sick this past week I was hopeless and completely absorbed in Christy. I bought the series for my sister a couple years ago, but I am fairly certain that I have watched it more than she has.


There is so much I love about the show. The main character inspires me. Alice Henderson inspires me. The kids give me hope. I know it sounds corny of me to love this show so very much, but there is just something about it that captures my heart. It shows how much is possible if we do what we are scared of and perservere through the hard times. It shows how much God loves us. And that He is consistently testing us. It shows us the depravity and hope that is in humanity. But what I think is most striking about the show is that a small group of people can do a seemingly insurmountable tasks and change lives in the greater community that they live in if they are within God's will.


This would probably be a good time for me to say that I love the romance in the show as well. I always loved Neil McNeil. Always. No one else in my family understood that. He was married. He was not a Christian. But I loooved him. I guess the hopeless (yes, hopeless) romantic in me wanted to believe that God can work anything out if it is His will...even love. Hopeless romantic or not, I believe that. But watching the show you never find out who she decides. It ends with her having to decide between Neil and David. Boom. End of show.


NOTE: If you ever write a TV show and decide to end it that way, I will hate you. Okay, hate is a little strong, but I will have a firm and unwavering disdain for you. Just so you know.


However....tonight I watched this. Yes, I know that the guy who plays Neil is the only main character in the movie who is played by the same actor (the wonderful Stewart McLennen). And that is only partly the reason I watched it. I wanted to see how they played the end of the story out. I might have teared up a little. And here is why:

God found Neil. Christy was ill with a fever and the two of them were stranded in a cabin during a storm. His bedside prayer over Christy was phenomenal. Not that salvation prayers have to be all grand and gussied, but Neil's showed the shear amount of faith that he had found in God. Even as the woman he loved was very ill, he recognized his sin and that only God had control. He apologized for trying to take that control away from God during his work as a doctor. And what got me the most is that he said that whether or not Christy lived (he recognized that it was only God's will) he would dedicate his life to the One who controlled it. 


And that made me think. Could I do that? I have been a Christian for about five years now. But I have known of God for much longer than that. Faced with the decision of the life of my true love or God's will, could I choose God's will? I claim to cherish His will and His guidance over my life, but faced with that decision...what would my answer be? It struck me tonight that maybe that is why I have not been in a serious relationship. Maybe God knows that I wouldn't choose Him and He is trying to mold me into the woman who would. I remember something that I was given in high school. It was a wonderful piece of prose. One line has always stuck with me:


"No, not until you are satisfied, fulfilled, and content with being loved by Me alone- with giving yourself totally and unreservedly to Me- with having an intensely personal relationship with Me alone- discovering that only in Me is your satisfaction to be found- will you be capable of the perfect human relationship that I have planned for you."


I have never admitted this before, but friends I am not there yet. I am not. I desperately want to be, but not because I want a husband. I want to be there because I have a great God. The movie and Neil's conversion really made me think. I have been so consumed with life and other things that I have all but neglected my Savior. Not any more. Lord help me! I never want to neglect Him again. He is worth more than I could ever give Him if I tried my very hardest every day. And I haven't even been trying. 


Pray for me!