Another woman will have your saved husband...

I guess this post won't leave me alone, so let me write it out and get back to writing my exciting new Kindle book about real people actually making real money online.

One time I must've been moaning to a friend about my husband -- about him not coming to church with me as often as I'd like him to -- and perhaps I was playing out the scenarios of what it would be like to free myself "like a gazelle" and be married to one of those guys who drapes his arm around his wife in the pews.

"Another woman will have your saved husband..."

Then she said something -- one of those phrases that your friends can say to you -- those "unintentional lyricists" and unpublished writers that give you some of your best quotes unknowingly.

It stuck with me for years and years.

I think she may have talked about Warren Sapp or Warren Moon (probably the former whom I just saw Bishop T.D. Jakes talking to in the front row of The Potter's House New Year's service streaming online) and how he got saved after a while.

She told me about not giving up -- or else, he'll get saved and then "another woman will have your saved husband."

Hold on, Old Soldier!

The Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, Arizona

Yeah, that was enough to give me plenty of food for thought, and reason enough to keep going and focus on his many many positive qualities.

He's smart...

He's good-looking...

He's witty and says the funniest things that may me laugh.

He's hard-working and dedicated...

He's an amazing father and husband...

Excellent provider. He knows how to make that money...

He's neat -- bordering on the metro-sexual with how well he keeps himself. Not one of those guys that you have to pick out clothes to wear. On the contrary, he's pretty impeccable with his dress code.

I just love him.

That's what Joyce Meyer taught us as well: to focus on a person's great qualities, and all the other nitpicking stuff diminishes.

Intellectual Faith vs. Saving Faith

Dr. Charles Stanley had the best sermon yesterday about people who mentally ascent to accepting Jesus as Savior, and ones who have a "Damascus Road" experience -- where they can point to an exact time in their lives when they came to the end of themselves, or hit rock bottom, or lost someone that hurt so much that they turned to Christ and really asked Him to be Lord of their lives.

Not just some 12-year-old confirmation paper-signing because this is the thing we do, but a real crying-Uncle-I-give-up time that we can point to that says, "Yes, Lord, I give in. Jesus take the wheel."

That was good stuff.

Perhaps that's part of the reason I was crying this morning in the car on this cool brilliant day before my workday began.

But then a version of "Hold On, Old Soldier" came on the radio...reminding me of the time Bishop Walter Hawkins flew that crack-addicted pastor out to his house and ministered to him for a whole week.

The Mighty One gave me renewed hope this brighter day that us "saved" folks can make mistakes and hurt people and be hurt by people and get kicked out of places and be lonely whilst others "kick against the goads and pricks" -- all for God to get our attention and offer us a much better place under his obedience and lovely, protective boundaries.

Just in time.