"I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee" (Jeremiah 31:3).Valentine’s Day has a whole new meaning for me this year! Red heart  I am engaged to a beautiful, godly, and talented young lady!  But as I read back through various Journal entries over the past four years, I realize that the path to where I am now has not been all lined with roses.

Years ago, the Lord impressed me with the fact that it would be defrauding for any guy to single out a girl for special attention without first gaining the blessing of her parents to pursue her heart. That was easy enough … until I met Kendalyn! We worked together at the IBLP Headquarters for a little over a year and my admiration for her humility and virtue continued to grow. But the Lord had led Kendalyn and I worked together with a great team at the Headquarters for a little over a yearme to make a commitment to serve Him with a single focus for a certain number of years. So any thoughts or actions of love toward Kendalyn would just have to wait. This little secret between God and I really deepened my closeness with Him. I often found myself quoting Psalm 73:25: “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.”

I still remember standing in a church one Sunday after Kendalyn had left Headquarters and returned to her home in the remote regions of western Canada. My heart was aching. She was gone. I really missed her! We stood up to sing a hymn, and it was the words of I Timothy 1:12 set to music: “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.” There was such a freedom in completely committing my future to the Lord! If I simply trusted and obeyed His leading, He was going to work out every situation, whether easy or hard, for my good.

Eventually my commitment to single service was up and I suddenly realized that I was at a critical point of decision. Should I actually try making “the call” to Kendalyn’s Dad to discuss courtship? This was no small thing! I really wanted a clear word from the Lord! So I asked Him for it. Then I looked down at my Bible reading for the day. It just "The king's daughter is all glorious within" (Psalm 45:13).so happened to be “the wedding Psalm”! Psalm 45:13 jumped off the page to me: “The king’s daughter is all glorious within.” The inward virtue radiating from Kendalyn’s life was precisely what had attracted me so much to her! When I excitedly shared this rhema verse with my Dad, he smiled and said, “That is exactly the same passage of Scripture that the Lord gave to me before I married your Mom!”

Little did I realize that it would be another whole year and a half before all the lights would turn green and God would allow my authorities to give their full blessing on me making “the call” to Kendalyn’s Dad. It was during this time of patiently waiting, however, that over and over again God emphasized to me the importance of learning to fear Him: “He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him” (Psalm 145:19). “Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments. His seed shall be mighty upon earth: the generation of the upright shall be blessed” (Psalm 112:1-2). As God’s desires became my desires by surrendering my will and delighting in His, fulfilling my desires would become God’s responsibility: “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart” (Psalm 37:4).

I was honestly very nervous when I finally talked to Kendalyn’s Dad in July of 2010. But the many clear rhemas that the Lord had given over the past few years were a source of complete confidence and hope: “I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope” (Psalm 130:5). Five months later, Mr. Kowalchuk gave his full blessing to begin pursuing Kendalyn’s heart.

Looking back, I am so grateful for the many challenging years of patiently waiting on God’s timing. Now Kendalyn and I are able to pursue a wonderfully fulfilling and guilt-free relationship. With a heart full of gratitude, I wholeheartedly affirm that …

My God is worthy of all my trust, in His Word I fully relax,
’cause His Will is exactly what I would choose
if I only knew all the facts.

Kendalyn & Robert

    This entry was posted on Monday, February 14th, 2011 at 10:20 am and is filed under The Journey Continued. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.