Hope in Front of Me Read online

  The Dating Game

  Sophia and I fell for each other pretty quickly and dated for several years. But as every lovestruck teenager knows, dating has its ups and downs. When you’re young, you can be impulsive and hurtful without even trying. We fell into that category at times. As a result, we broke up and got back together more times than I care to count. In spite of that, we always had a connection that didn’t fade, even when we did break up. At the end of the day, I knew she was the one for me, but anyone who has been in a serious relationship knows it is easy to lose yourself in the intense emotions you feel for one another. That’s what happened to me.

  Sophia and I continued to spend a lot of time together, and things became serious. I had the intention of marrying her, but I started recognizing the highs and lows in our relationship. I valued Sophia’s opinion and respected her relationship with God, perhaps more than I did my own. When things were good between Sophia and me, everything was right with the world and with God. But when we hit a rough patch, my world turned upside down and I started to question myself. Was I valuable? Was I attractive enough? I recognized how dependent I was on Sophia, and I knew that wasn’t right. I knew I needed some time away to be sure of who I was without Sophia.

  We ended up breaking up for about a year. It wasn’t an easy choice. We talked about it and decided that if we set our love free and came back to each other, it must be a match made in heaven. If not, we’d have saved ourselves from marrying the wrong person. I asked Sophia to promise me she would wait for me, and she said she would.

  But just a few days after we broke up, Sophia was hanging out with another guy from the worship team at our church — the same team I was on — and I could do nothing but watch. All of our friends knew that Sophia and I dated for five years, and no one said anything about her hanging out with this other guy. I felt like it was blatantly in my face. I remember them leaving church together, just the two of them, and getting into his car right in front of me. It devastated me. I couldn’t believe it. I went out to my car and cried my eyes out. In that moment, through the hurt I was feeling, I promised myself I wasn’t going to rely on someone else to build me up and that I wouldn’t run to another person to find out who I was.

  When I was younger, my sisters always told me I was ugly. I know they didn’t mean anything by it; it was just typical sibling stuff. But I was so impressionable. I looked up to them, and what they said affected me. I always heard them talk about boys and how cute they were, but they told me I was ugly, so I just assumed I was. It wasn’t until my twenties that I realized girls like guys for who they are and not necessarily how good-looking they are, although I’m sure looks help. Reflecting back on that, I realize that what my sisters said to me shaped my view of who I was, as do many things when we’re young.

  Gradually, I began to see things differently. I started to let all the junk go, including the lies I believed about myself. I spent a lot of time praying and asking God to wash all the negative stuff out of me. And He did. I came to a place where I recognized who I was again and could be confident in that. Little did I know this setback in my relationship with Sophia was what I needed to bring me to a better place and ultimately bring us closer together in the end, though you never feel that way in the moment when your emotions are raw.

  It took me six months just to get comfortable with the idea of not being with Sophia. She continued to date the same guy. I eventually dated other girls, but for me, nothing felt right. I couldn’t talk to other girls the way I could to Sophia. There was just something off. I took that as a confirmation that Sophia was the one I was supposed to be with. I was hoping that dream would come true.

  The good news is we did get back together. God made it clear to both of us that’s what He wanted. No voice was spoken from heaven, no clouds parted, no doves came out of the sky. There is just something deep within that knows when you meet the other half of your soul. It is a connection that can be explained and understood only by the two halves intended to make a whole.

  We were both twenty-three when we decided to get back together — this time for good. No more interruptions. No more bumps in the road. It was time to follow our hearts fully and put all other roads — other options, relationally speaking — behind us. This was for real — and forever.

  It was destiny that we met. I am sure of it. So much of who I am and my own story is wrapped up in Sophia.

  A Second Set of Eyes

  The road to our destiny comes with a lot of on-ramps and off-ramps. It’s easy to get distracted. Sometimes those distractions will take us off course, away from the destiny planted in our hearts. Even when we get off course, we have opportunities to get back on track, but there’s no telling what people and experiences we may have missed during our detours. It’s important to stay the course and commit wholeheartedly to following the dreams in your heart. The destiny given to you specifically is like a calibrated compass that will guide you along your journey through life. There are so many people and situations that can steer us in a variety of ways for a number of reasons. You can calculate your life away. In the end, you have to focus on the direction your heart is leading as you move forward into your future.

  Your heart is a second set of eyes to help you see the things of this world. If your heart has become evil through seeds of anger and hate, you will interpret life and every person’s actions through those negative eyes. A person might come shake your hand and compliment you, and your heart might analyze what they have done as having some kind of hidden motive or agenda. You might spend countless hours wondering why he or she is out to get you. On the other hand, if you have a pure heart, you accept the compliment and are touched by the person’s kindness. All things are possible when we see life and people through the eyes of our hearts.

  Yes, your heart will be damaged along the way. Yes, you’ll feel many things — some will be good and some will not be so good. But if you stop feeling your way through life, you can’t be fully present in the moment.

  True reward is found in taking the risk.

  True joy is secured in taking the journey.

  True love is discovered in taking the leap.

  Your heart is where you’ll experience all the highs and lows of achieving your dreams. The key is to feel it fully without letting the interruptions distract you from your goal.

  The Proposal

  It was finally time for me to propose to Sophia, and I needed to talk it out with my future (so I hoped!) father-in-law. It was a bit of a sell to him because Sophia and I had been broken up for a year, had gotten back together, and now were planning to get married. He was a little confused, but he knew our hearts and could see the love we had for each other. He gave us his blessing, as did my parents. We couldn’t have been happier.

  I really wanted the proposal to be a special moment. I figured I had only one shot to get it right. I wanted Sophia to remember this night forever.

  All of our friends and both our families knew about the proposal, but Sophia had no clue. I planned it very carefully and wanted everyone to be there. A friend lured her to the church with the excuse that she had a meeting with our pastor’s wife, and Sophia fell for it.

  One of the perks of being on the church staff was I was able to use the church facilities to plan for the proposal night. This was a good thing because I didn’t have extra money to rent out a facility. The church is also where Sophia and I met, so there were layers of meaning to my decision to propose to her there.

  All the lights were out when Sophia arrived, except for a spotlight that was shining on a stool with a single rose on it. I began singing Brian McKnight’s “Back at One” to her as she walked down the aisle. It was one of our favorite songs.

  Sophia was crying by the time she got to the stool. I had her sit with her back to the sanctuary. She had no clue all our friends and family were there watching. As she sat down on the stool, a video of our journey together started playing. We loved taking pictures along the way, so there were a
lot of fun memories for me to stitch together.

  Once the video finished, I had the lights come up. Sophia then realized everyone was there with us. I got down on one knee and proposed. (She said yes!) Afterward, we had a huge party at the church to celebrate our engagement. It was a moment I’ll always remember.

  A Big Wedding

  Sophia and I chose May 15, 2004, as our wedding date. We wanted a big wedding. In addition to our families, we invited the whole church. We saved as much money as we could for our wedding. Her parents paid for most of it, but my mom helped a bit too.

  After all the planning and preparation, our day finally arrived.

  There were a lot of people in that room. I was nervous. I’ll never forget what Sophia looked like in her wedding dress. As she walked down the aisle, I kept telling myself just how lucky I was to have been given such a gift. She was the only thing that mattered in the whole world in that moment. She had captured my heart so many years ago.

  Our wedding was exactly what we’d hoped it would be. There were a lot of family and friends there, which made it even more special for us. Nearly eight hundred people stayed for the dance at the reception. It was one of the best days of my life.

  If there is one word I could use to describe that day, it would be perfect. It was a new chapter for both of us, and we were thrilled to be doing life together — forever. When you are young and in love, there really is little concern for the things that seem to weigh heavier as we get older. We were together, and that was all that mattered.

  Follow Your Heart

  People talk a lot about following their hearts. Some people refer to it as following your bliss. I think they are talking about a deep happiness that comes from things we can’t control and possess. In a sense, our hearts can’t be controlled. Our feelings rise up from out of nowhere, and we are drawn to follow their lead.

  To follow our hearts is to make ourselves vulnerable — open to experiencing joy and pain, peace and war, and even to being complete as well as being broken. We’re never sure what will come next, the joy or the pain, but we know that a life that doesn’t follow the heart is not as full or satisfied as one that does.

  Sophia and I dated for several years, and there were many twists and turns. But we were determined to be together. It was the best way we knew to live as we pressed forward into the future we dreamed of, and it’s the reason we found true love.

  It’s risky business engaging your heart and moving in the direction of your dreams. Even my dream relationship, one that resulted in marriage, had its share of pain mixed with joy. When pain comes to the heart, we have two options: We can shut down our pursuit of our dream, or we can face the pain and move forward. When Sophia and I hurt each other, we could have shut down our dream of being together. Instead, we focused on the endgame and dealt with the pain by choosing to forgive. Forgiveness is what kept our dream of being together alive. We had to choose to follow our hearts and to love. Choosing love is the road to life — and life in abundance.

  Life presents a variety of circumstances. Sometimes it comes as obstacles that can distract us from our true purpose and derail us from discovering the passion that rests within each of us to live a life of significance. Sometimes life comes at us in such a way that we can’t escape who we were created to be.

  In all things, we must remain determined to rest our hope in the simple, overused, and underpracticed discipline of following our hearts into the destiny we dream of. Discipline may seem like an odd word to use when talking about following your heart. Discipline simply means you’ve predecided that your default mode of living will rest within the desires of your heart.

  When you live that way, you will find the strength and determination to overcome any distraction and live into the full meaning of who you are, who you were created to be, and whom you were created to love.

  I’m an advocate of protecting the heart. Your heart is your real set of eyes. What I mean by that is your heart can help you know which choice is right and which is wrong even when you can’t reason your way through a situation or experience. I had no way of knowing at the time how connected my life would be to Sophia. Had I not married her, I would have missed a huge part of my destiny. Follow your heart to pursue your dreams. It is essential.

  Chapter 2

  A Crutch to Carry Us Through

  Hard times are periods of preparation.

  Love is pure and untainted — until life gets in the way. Then it becomes a sticky mess.

  Sophia and I were absolutely in love with each other. There was no doubt about that. We were young, married, and ready to take on the world. After our amazing honeymoon in Mexico, we found ourselves right in the middle of life.

  Sophia started college to study early-childhood education. She wanted to be a teacher. Anyone who knew her could see that loving on kids was her passion. Sophia was amazing with kids, and they loved her. That career path was a perfect fit for her.

  But life was messy for us. We didn’t have enough money for Sophia to continue on with school, so she dropped out. It was a tough decision. We made it believing there would be a time in the near future when she would be able to return to school and finish her degree. We both felt that it was the responsible thing to do at the time — a mere postponement, not a derailment.

  In the meantime, Sophia took a job as a nanny. It didn’t pay much, but the family offered us our own living space — two rooms in their basement. We shared the family’s kitchen and bathrooms. Although it may sound like the perfect setup for newlyweds strapped for cash, I felt awful about it. I felt like a failure because I couldn’t provide a home for my wife. We got married and immediately had to move in with someone else. I wanted us to have our own place. But this is where we started our life together.

  When that opportunity ended after about a year, we still weren’t financially ready to move out on our own just yet, so we moved in with Sophia’s parents. This was another tough choice for me at the time. I wanted to be able to have a place of our own, but I knew we needed to be financially stable before we could do that. Looking back now, I realize this time was an opportunity for Sophia’s parents to have two more years with their daughter. I’m so happy we did that, but at the time I felt like a loser for not being able to provide for Sophia like I wanted.

  Infected by Generosity

  When I married Sophia, I gained a wonderful wife — as well as her school loans and credit card bills. All in all, it amounted to about $13,000 of debt. That’s a lot, especially when our combined income wasn’t much more than $29,000 a year and our credit was terrible.

  I remembered something I had heard before Sophia and I got married. In 2002, during the time Sophia and I had broken up, I went to church to hear a guest speaker. I was really struggling at that point in my life, and I was looking for something — anything — to give me hope and purpose. I had hoped this speaker would speak about courage or trust or even trials. Instead, he came to talk about money. It wasn’t exactly a topic I was hoping to hear about that day. Nevertheless, his message sucked me in, and it’s what I needed to hear.

  Often what we need to hear comes in the most unlikely places and in the most unexpected ways. This speaker talked about money in ways I had never considered. I had learned about giving at the age of twenty and started giving back then. I’m sure I’d picked up bits and pieces of these truths over the years, but this message seemed to connect the dots. It sparked something in me and completely changed my view on money and generosity. I don’t even remember one direct quote from this message, but at that moment, I made a choice. I told myself I would do whatever it takes not to be poor and to help others with whatever I have. I didn’t know how. I even doubted if it was really possible, given my financial situation. In spite of every practical reason that showed I had no way to help others or be financially stable, my decision to live my life in a generous way was a major turning point for me. I looked at life differently after that. I saw opportunity.

  That decis
ion set me free from the expectations of others to earn so I could spend. Instead, I made a commitment to invest in the things that would last forever by becoming generous with every part of my life. Now I needed to start applying this new life lesson. It was then that something from the Bible caught my eye. It was a passage that spoke of how Jesus is preparing a place for His bride (His people) to live once this life is through. I figured that if Jesus was doing that for His bride, I should do no less for mine! So I set out to settle my debts and prepare a life for my bride.

  Sophia and I decided — together — to start chipping away at our debt. We paid as much as possible on the smallest amount of debt to start paying off bills as quickly as we could. I found credit offers that allowed us to consolidate debt and move it to a much smaller interest rate. This allowed us to pay off the debt faster.

  It took a few years to get out of debt, but it was worth the effort. It was a crucial time for me to stick with our goal even when it was tough. I wanted to do whatever it took to be a good steward of what we’d been given. I also wanted a better life for both of us. Earlier in my life, it felt impossible to achieve being debt-free because I had no vision for the future. However, I was in a different place now and had a completely different picture of my future.

  Sophia and I were both committed to getting out of debt. I was probably a little more obsessive than Sophia, but she was completely on board. It wasn’t easy. I was working at the church and driving a truck. That consumed six days (or more) every week. Sophia worked part-time as a teacher and also at a day care across town. She would drive all the way across town just to be with the kids for an hour. Because gas prices were so high at the time, I told Sophia it was counterproductive and costing us more than it was worth. She was spending more money in gas than what the day care paid her for the hour she was there. But Sophia loved those kids and was passionate about what she did. We both chose jobs we were passionate about that paid so little, which is why we both worked more than one job. We knew that if we could get the debt out of our way, we could live the generous life we dreamed about and envisioned together.