The Love of my Life

In 2002 before I met my husband Isaac, him and his friend Jhonna were hanging out at his friend Anthony's house. He told me that while hanging there, he saw a picture of this blonde girl hanging up on the wall and asked Anthony "Who is that girl? She's hot" Anthony made a face and said "Man thats my stepsister!" (I tell this story only from what Isaac told me) Later that day when driving home, Isaac and Jhonna had a conversation about the fact that they never knew Anthony had a good looking stepsister. Three years later, Isaac married Anthony's stepsister. (Thats me by the way if you haven't caught that yet...btw.. I'm not calling msyelf hot.. just repeating the story my husband told bc I thought it was really cool that he saw a picture of me months before we met and was attracted to me.. its a cute story if you ask me.. haha) Anyways, I didn't meet Isaac until I gradutated highschool and moved to PA. Isaac had already known my dad and step family because he went to church with them. When I met Isaac, I was instantly attracted to him. After a few days of getting to know him and seeing his heart for God, I began to think "I could marry someone like him" (I kept that to myself though bc I figured it would be creepy to tell him that) Isaac and I became pretty good friends and I would pray and ask God that if he was the man for me, that we could develop a good friendship before we started dating because I wanted to have a relationship that honored Him (In the past all my relationships didn't honor God at all and I wasn't friends with any of the people I dated) Isaac and I grew close and more and more I felt he was the man I would marry and about a year and a half later, he finally figured it out! =) Isaac and I dated 5 months before he asked me to marry him and on July 9, 2005 I married my best friend. We had our ups and downs, especially in the first 2 years. Neither of us really knew what a healthy marriage should look like and so we acted in the only ways we knew how, none of which were actually healthy or biblical. We praise God though because a few of our teachers at CFNI really invested in our lives and helped us learn how to honor God and each other in our marriage. Today I have to say that besides my salvation, I think Isaac is the greatest gift that God has ever given me. He is a man who loves God and because he loves God, he loves me. He has walked me through some difficult times. He's sat up with me at night when I've cried. He's spent nights up praying for me while I slept. Isaac has worked extremely hard to provide for me and has always excelled in his jobs. I can't even count how many times I have come home from work on a day that he had off to find that he spent the day cleaning our apartment. I have so much fun with him. We are constantly laughing and goofing off. He leads me spiritually. At night he reads through a few chapters of the Bible with me and asks me questions to challenge what I believe. When I asked him why he why he was constantly asking me questions and challanging what I was telling him I believed, he told me because he wanted me to learn to have a firm foundation on what I believed that wouldn't be shaken every time I heard something different. When he told me why he was challenging me I was so greatful that he was teaching me in this way. I have spent a few years so confused because I had heard so many different doctrines and I was being pullled in all different directions. It caused me more harm that good. I'm so greatful for a husband who is teaching me how to explore the Bible and really grasp what it is I believe and to hold firm to what the Word of God is saying. He is such an incredible man of God. I am so unbelievably greatful for him. He provides for me. He loves me. He leads me and he is evidence of God's grace in my life.

Daddy's Girl

Many people know my story, but I feel that now is a great time to share with those who may not know the grace that God has upon my relationship with my father. This is the extreme condensed version, but in its condensed form is still an amazing work that God did. When I was about 11 years old, my dad left us. Technically he was in my life, but he was no longer with my mom or living at home and in my mind, he left me. Over the years I grew to resent him. Eventually our relationship consisted of screaming matches on the phone and rarely ever seeing him. We went through a period of time when we didn't really talk at all and it was during that time that God began to change things. I didn't grow up as a Christian and I had no idea that churches existed beyond the Catholic church. When I was 15 my friend invited me to a youth night with her where there were teenagers praying for teenagers. I felt something different there and I felt like what they were teaching was true. It made sense to me. I continued going to church and eventually went to camp with the youth group that summer. During that camp I really gave my life to Christ and I remember walking out of the service that night saying "If only my dad knew about this Jesus, our relationship would be better. I would have my dad back" I remember praying for him and asking others to pray for him to. About a year later I was talking to my dad online via instant message and he said to me "Samantha, I need to tell you something, today I stood up in front of people for the first time and accepted Jesus" I remembered sitting at my computer crying. I remembered thinking to myself "whoa this prayer thing actually works" It was one of the best days of my life. I later learned that the day he told me that was not actually the day he gave his life to Jesus, but the day he got the courage to stand up in a crowd and tell people. When we actually talked back to the time he gave his life to Christ, it was around the same time I did. I was praying for him and I had no idea that God had already answered me. My relationship with my dad started to grow. I eventually moved in with him and although we had our ups and downs, I am always amazed at how God restored our relationship and I am always amazed at the man that God made my father into. My father is a completely different man today that the one I knew growing up. He is a man after God's own heart, who seeks to please Him and live his life according to the Word of God. He is a constant encouragement to me and I am more proud of him than ever. His faith is such an example and I thank God because he gave me a new dad. I was once fatherless but now I have a man of God for a father and he is evidence of God's grace in my life.

Financial Provision

I'm always a little hesitant to talk about money. I don't want anyone to mistake what I'm saying to mean that following God means that you will be rich and prosperous and be able to get whatever you want. Following Jesus does not in any way guarantee more money. It doesn't mean that God will rain down money from heaven and give you everything you want. Nor does it guarantee an easier life (Following Christ actually guarantees suffering and difficulties) However, I do feel that I should always praise God and give Him glory when he has made such a financial provision in my life. For the most part of our (my and Isaac's) marriage, we have struggled financially, however we have always made it through. Recently I noticed that the financial burden of our bills and expenses has seemed to lighten up. We both got new jobs and pay raises which was great, but wasn't until recently that I realized how much God had done. I am a hyper organized person. I do our family budget a few months in advance where I estimate our income and our expenses during each month. While doing this I wanted to estimate our annual income because we recently found out that we OWE taxes this year and I wanted to see if our income increase had anything to do with it. While calculating it, I decided to find out what we were making annually 3 years ago when we started working for CFNI. I discovered that because of gradual pay increases, we are now making significantly more combined that we did 3 years ago. (I don't want to write the exact amount cuz I'm just not quite sure if that's right to do or not.. but it was enough that we owe taxes this year) I was shocked because I didn't realize how much God had increased our income to lighten the burden we had. I noticed that when an emergency came up (car breaking down, medical bills, and the suprise taxes) we didn't really feel stressed because we had saved up enough to cover it, but I just never paid attention to how great the provision was. That's not really what amazed me though. While we can pay our pay our bills, save some and have a little spending money, we are no where near well off. We are paying our bills with a little extra to spare. What really amazed me was how in the world we survived 3 years ago. At that point between the two of us, what we made combined equaled to about 1 person's not so great salary, yet we made it. My husband and I sat down talking about it and we are utterly amazed at how we made it through. During that time we had the added expense of a school bill and 4 credit cards that needed to be paid off. I can't fathom how in the world we made it. The only way we survived. The only way we made it through and didn't end up having to leave CFNI and go back to the east coast is because of the financial provision from God. Somehow he helped us make it through. I have no idea how we survived, but we did. He is Jehovah Jireh. He is my provider and this is evidence of His grace in my life.