It's with great delight that I share a new love story! I want to thank Mercedes Miller for being so transparent and vulnerable with us. As you read this story, quiet your heart and simply listen. Some of what Mercedes speaks of, you may feel is only for those spiritual heavy weights. But believe me it's not. I believe there's something distinct in her love story just for you.
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I'd love for you to briefly share your journey of romance before you got married. And how old you were when you were married.
I was 33 years old when I got married.
Three years before I ever met Herbie, my aunt told me about a dream she had. In the dream a man of mixed heritage was in pursuit of me and we were seated in a booth that had red leather. According to my aunt, the man proclaimed that he wanted me and my two children.
Three years later, after a friend's insistence that I join her out for an evening of karaoke, I was seated in a booth that had red leather seats and here was this African-American/Puerto Rican man approaching me. I remember thinking he was just very sweet and tender. We were introduced, or rather re-acquainted, as it turned out that he was the neighbor who lived across the street and up three houses. I had no idea that he had a crush on me. We danced the rest of the night and I guess you would say the rest is history, but it was a very complicated history...
What drew you to your husband? And how did you know you wanted to spend the rest of your life with him?
I did not know I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. In fact quite the opposite was true.
He was not a Believer and I was doing a cat and mouse dance with Jesus. One foot in, one foot out... I just was not trusting of God at this point in my life. Within three months of meeting Herbie, I discovered I was pregnant. The same aunt who had prophetically told me about this man, also forewarned me about the pregnancy with the admanant rebuke that I not "do anything with the baby".
I was very scarred from my first marriage, which had been incredibly violent and the result of my direct disobedience to God. I had two young daughters to care for, with another baby on the way and I just was not sure about this new man. Out of sheer obedience and faith, I carried the pregnancy to term and we forged a family. Yet, I was hidden, withdrawn and very skeptical on the inside. On the outside, it seemed all good.
We made wedding plans for September 12, 2008. I kept pushing for the wedding because I did not want to live in sin, not because of an overwhelming love or desire to spend the rest of my life with anyone.
However, none of the plans would come through. Herbie's nephew died the week we were due to get married, which spiraled him into a deep depression. His nephew had been one of four surviving members of a car accident that orignially resulted in Herbie losing his mother, two cousins and an uncle. The loss of his nephew just reopened that wound of loss and I did not know how to reach him.
I was in survival mode myself. The one thing I did hear clearly, was God telling me to call off the wedding. It was the very thing I did NOT do the first time I was to get married. I thought, "Oh boy. Here we go again Jesus." But, I clearly felt God asking me --was I going to repeat the same sin again? All I had was my broken life as an answer-- No.
I sent text messages to family and friends, called everything off. Moved out of the house we shared and found myself homeless, taking finals at the end of winter, while my 3 daughters and I shared a motel room. Over a very stoic year of rebuilding my life, Herbie and I were able to form a friendship based on our mutual interest, daughter number 3.
Since, I was not interested in a relationship with him, it made it easier to relax, to be myself, to share my God and be forward about the primary relationship in my life.
From time to time, Herbie would mention how he wanted to marry me, and I would just think, "this dude obviously does not get it." At one point, God had given me a beautiful picture of this brown woman, full of laughter and love. She was a helper to Herbie. I shared this vision with him. I told him, "Herb, God has an amazing woman for you and I am going to pray her into your life."
He just looked at me so dumbfounded and replied, "How do you know you aren't the brown girl?"
Again I just thought, this guy is nuts! He doesn't get it! But it was a 3 year journey, for me to get it. Herbie asked me to marry him 3 times. Each time it was in the early part of Fall. Each time I told him no. I just did not believe he was what God had for me.
I now realize that God was wooing me, healing me, allowing me to walk in singleness in a way I had never done before. When Herbie proposed again in 2011. I knew that God was saying this is what I have for you. It was the first time I had opened up and really allowed myself to confess how much I did love Herbie.
I remember God asking me, "At what point did you know you loved me?" My thoughtful response was, "after the break-up with Herbie, when you moved me from the motels to a nice home. I could really trust you because you answered that question and fear of abandonment."
Then the Holy Spirit asked me, "and when did you know Herbie loved you?" And I remembered just the clear picture of being pregnant and Herbie tied my shoes because I couldn't reach them and it was this act of tenderness that I never experienced from the father of my other two children.
And then, the last question. "At what point did you close off to Herbie?" It was the day my youngest daughter had ran up to Herbie's car when we were dating. It reminded me of the way she greeted her father and without saying a word to anyone else, I determined we would not be hurt like that again.
However it wasn't a "we" situation, it was really "me". I had a heart issue and it took God 3years of careful and deliberate refining to prepare me for what he had in store all along. He literally preserved our wedding date for 3 years. Putting everything in place so that when we entered the covenant, it would be with a surety and commitment for all time. I could not and should not have married that man before September 26, 2011.
Did you feel pressure from family or society, to marry earlier in your life? If so, how did you deal with the pressure?
I don't know that I felt pressure from others to get married. What I did feel was an obsession with other people's opinions about me personally. I did not like the stigma of being a single, african-american woman with children. It made me feel shameful and embarassed.
Even when Herbie and I reunited, I was feeling anxiety about what other people would think or say. I had to disconnect myself from my girlfriends and spend a time of prayer and intercession with God. I wanted to make sure I was doing his will and not my own and I had to lay down my esteem for man. It was another level of trust between me and my heavenly father.
Have you always had the desire to get married? Why or Why not?
I never envisioned or had romantic notions of marriage in that sense. It was a matter of fact thing for me. Either it is or it isn't. I didn't realize that my hardened attitude towards marriage was the result of my own broken and damaged heart.
When I started visualizing me and Herbie 20, 30, 40 years down the road, it both scared and excited me. For so long, I hadn't allowed myself those kinds of dreams. Today, I am just amazed at the certainty of God's plans and I am enjoying marriage very much. I never thought it could be this way.
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Stay Tuned for the last section of this story series:
"When Love Looks Differently Than You Expect"- Part 2!
"When Love Looks Differently Than You Expect"- Part 2!
