From Faithful Devotion to Unexpected Choices: My Journey of Redemption – Part 1

My life today is something I never thought it would be. In many ways, I had a pretty normal life growing up.

I was born and raised in the Chicago-land area, in a very conservative suburb, by parents who came to faith in Jesus late in their teens and so I was raised in the
Church (specifically the Evangelical Free Church denomination). My 4th grade Sunday school teacher came to my home and walked me through how to begin a relationship with Christ. I literally remember feeling different, though I didn’t fully understand why. (I did come to know what that ‘different’ feeling was many years later.) Thus began my life-long process of looking more like Christ and bringing glory to God.

Faithful Devotion

My parents were faithful servants in our church. That example lead me to want to serve at a young age. I loved attending youth group, youth conferences, youth camps, singing, working with kids in the nursery, in Children’s church and summer backyard programs. I loved (and still love) serving Christ with the gifts and talents He’s given me. In my Senior year of high school, I found out that I was known as the ‘goody-goody’ girl. At first, I was a little disappointed and embarrassed by that ‘title’. But I should not have been surprised. Why? Because I didn’t go to the parties that all the ‘popular’ people went to. I didn’t really even date that much. Why? Because between my freshman and sophomore year I made a commitment to the Lord at a youth conference that I would only date a Christian guy. I knew this would mean that I wouldn’t date much. But the conviction was strong and I prayed hard for Him to bring one to me. So much more to this part of my story but I’ll save it for another post some day. It’s really a pretty good story … in my opinion anyway.

Most all of my schooling was in public schools except for College. I wanted to attend a Christian college. The summer between my Jr. & Sr. year of high school, I worked at the summer camp I had grown up attending. Timber-Lee Christian Center in East Troy, Wisconsin. I loved that place so when I heard that I could be on summer staff, I applied! It was that first summer on staff that I met two college gals that went to two different college in the Twin Cities. My mom was not super excited that I wanted to go to college 8-hours away from home but I applied anyway. I was accepted to both schools. I chose to attend Bethel College (now Bethel University) in St. Paul, Minnesota. I went in thinking I’d do a degree in teaching with a minor in Psychology. (My mom always thought I’d be a great child psychologist.) Instead, I majored in Psychology and minored in Business and Computers. I was never going to counsel but loved the organizational behavior side of Psychology.

Now, here’s what you also need to know about me . . . I’m not that smart. Yep! I said that out loud and I do truly believe it. (Just sit by me sometime when I’m trying to learn tech stuff or even write!) Bethel, in my opinion, was a tough school when I was there. Probably still is. So, I was all about studying. Some of those “required” classes I had to take (it was a liberal arts college which meant I had to take classes to be well-rounded, I guess) almost did me in! I had some great roommates too. Between classes, studying and hanging with my new girlfriends, I didn’t have time to look for a boyfriend. Plus, I didn’t attend college with super high hopes of finding a husband and getting married, I was attending because it was the right next step in life.

Then it happened. Second semester of my sophomore year at Bethel, I became a teaching assistant (TA) for one of the Psych Professors. I had taken his Personalities course so I was eligible and he chose me. All of the courses’ exams were open book, take home essay style exam.

A few weeks into the semester, I was woken up by one of my roommates telling me I had a phone call. Who in the world would call at the ungodly hour of 6am?? Before I was even fully awake, this guy was telling me who he was (I’m surprised I remembered his name), why he was calling and could he get the next exam early so he could use his friend’s word processor on his computer (yes, this was a long time ago!). Within a day or two I had the exam printed so I headed to his PO box to put it in there as he requested. He just happened to be standing at the front of the mailbox area. He was waiting for it. I explained a few things to him and then headed back to the library where I spent most of my time.

Unexpected Choices

Over the next several weeks, this same guy started showing up in places around the campus I had not seen him at before. Namely, the library. And it was one of those things where I’d see him, he’d see me, we’d chat for a few minutes and then I’d take off to the next thing I needed to do. We would have some nice conversations but I was truly oblivious to what was actually happening. Remember, I didn’t think a guy . . . especially a guy as nice and as good looking as him . . . would be interested in me.

That oblivion to what he was doing made it all the more intriguing for him in his pursuit of me. It was the week long trip to Florida for Spring Break with my roommate and sister that had me thinking, “maybe there is something about this guy, Dave”. My sister’s constant question that whole week was, “What about Dave?” When I saw him walk into the coffee shop on that first day back and my heart did a little leap. It surprised me. I asked the Lord to make it even clearer to me what this whole thing was. I walked to him to say ‘Hi’. A first for me. His smile confirmed that there was something about this guy.

We went on our first date by the end of that week. I had never felt so comfortable with a guy before on a first date. Oh there is quite a story to tell about our first date, but that shall be saved for another time also.

While it was great that there was little to no awkwardness when we first start dating, there was also a danger I didn’t anticipate. I can also say now, that he didn’t anticipate it either. See along with feeling like we had been together longer than we had been, there was also a curiosity (a sinful one) that crept in as we physically got more and more comfortable with one another. Dave had a roommate who’s girlfriend stayed overnight in their room many nights. We both knew that it was wrong . . . especially because we were Christ-followers, at a Christian college, who had grown up in Christian families.

Looking back now, while I had committed to the Lord that I would only date Christian guys, I hadn’t truly & fully committed to not being sexually intimate with a Christian guy. I had attended MANY workshops at conferences about not “rounding the bases all the way to home plate” (the baseball analogy was used a lot when I was young). I believed I would never choose that. But, I now believe, that I did not have the same conviction or commitment to not having sex before marriage as I did towards dating only a Christian.

By the end of that semester of my sophomore year, I chose . . . we chose . . .the unexpected. I never anticipated going “all the way”. I felt guilty. He said he was committed to me. We tried stopping many times. But once you start; once you open yourself up to that level of intimacy, it’s very hard to stop.

The Ultimate Unexpected Choice

Every stop had a start again. I justified it. I stuffed the guilt to the point where I didn’t really even feel guilty any longer. He was in his Senior year and I was a Junior. We began to make plans to get married. At his parents house, my parents house, or around college roommates . . . we snuck around and thought no one knew what we were doing behind closed doors. But God . . . He knew.

That winter/spring semester, just before I headed home for Spring break . . . pretty much one year later from that trip to Florida where I was asked “What about Dave?” . . . I was late. A little too late. A month or two prior, I had been late. One would have thought that we’d get the message and stop our secret intimate life. Nope. It came and we went on like nothing happened. But this time seemed different and I knew I couldn’t go home without being certain.

Early Friday morning, before I left for the week, in my own college campus apartment . . . where I should have been sleeping every night . . . I got ready to walk through the steps on the “at home” pregnancy test. The instructions said that if the vile showed any hint of purple, that would be a positive test. The only thing I thought as I poured my first morning’s urine sample into the vile was, “Don’t be purple. Please don’t be purple . . . don’t be purple.”

What I saw next was the deepest shade of purple I had ever seen in my life! Immediately, shock set in and the only thought I had was, “We have to fix this problem”.

And that’s what we did. Or, at least, I thought it would ‘fix’ our problem.

Click here for Part 2 of “From Faithful Devotion to Unexpected Choices: My Journey of Redemption“.