Testimony Tuesday - 18th December 2018 - How I Met My Husband

hi welcome to testimony Tuesday today we have Richard and he's come on to share the story of how we met with myself I think it's a really good testimony and a lot of people want to know how I met my husband and yeah so we'll go ahead and share um I will start with where I was immediately before I met my husband so I was living in China I went out there for a year to teach and I'd only been a Christian for a year and a half when I went out there and it was the first time that I wasn't like dating somebody and I completely fell apart for that year because I had all my like emotional stability and all my confidence rested on somebody constantly telling me like giving me compliments and stuff like that so when I went out to China and I didn't I wasn't like dating any anybody I completely completely fell apart and I feel like God did a lot of breaking in me during this time and a lot of sort of like deliverance from different things I guess and a lot of just like putting things into place how how he wants it to be but yeah I certainly was really feeling like I wanted a husband and you know before I went out to China I still thought I'm really young and stuff like that but when I was living in China I saw that there were people that were my age that had already been married for a couple of years and I was like wow maybe I'm not too young to have a husband and so you know I was really praying and you know I really wanted a husband and you know over the course of that year there was so much breaking within me going on and then towards the end you know I was really crying out to God for a husband and I actually remember being in tears and just like belly you know like lying on my stomach in bed just like crying out to God and literally screaming at God going give me a husband just like you know it was like give me children or I die kind of thing like in the in the Bible I was like lit fuse like come on god I need a man this was a you know before I left China and I could feel be in this sort of weeks as I was leaving China I could feel that God was sort of like preparing me for marriage because there were certain things that he was just highlighting to me and I was like okay this looks strangely suspicious like it looks like he might be preparing me for marriage but when I came back to the UK I didn't think it would happen so soon and so yeah I I will give over to you now and then I'll take my story from my perspective yeah so at time I guess like around that time before I'm Eeva and the God was doing a few things in my life one of them was he really highlighted this area of as I shared my testimony previously about drinking alcohol that I felt God was telling me to give that up completely so I was trying to do that and an elder in my church boy it was kind of a mentor to me in a lot of ways and still is he he basically said I don't think God is gonna bless you with your wife until you give up alcohol so it's died on that road to trying to give that up and I've done that a couple of times I did have a few two of the slip backs but I was on that trajectory of giving it up completely also a conference I've been to after sort of many impure physical relationships that I'd had and there was a speaker who prayed over us and was rich praying for God to restore sexual purity so I'd had that prayed and I really had a deep encounter with the Holy Spirit that year which was summer of 2014 and so that was happening as well and then come to sort of beginning of the summer or sort of June July 2015 not long before me and even there and I had been kind of in a long-distance relationship for a few months it wasn't really going anywhere and I felt like God was convicting me about that and basically in the facts as well it wasn't with a believer so he was convicting me about the fact that this wasn't a believer and basically I'd had a couple of relationships with believers and those hadn't worked out and I think I had a lot of hurt from those so I kind of went looking outside of the church but it was always one of those things that deep down I felt a conviction that it wasn't right and so came to July and they are basically my book like a week off work from my job and I just decided to go away on my own and really see God and speak to God and ask him for clarification on many things on this relationship that I was kind of having I really wanted to just say you know ask God okay you want me to finish this completely and cut it off totally and also just clarification on a few things like direction but also yet praying for my wife okay so if this is not the person if this is not a relationship then you know submitting that whole area to God of my future wife because as I said I've had many before and as a Christian failed and messy relationship so I kind of come to the end of the line with that but as I say it was like looking back God was doing a few things to prepare me and so that was that was happening and do you want me to share the next bit would you wanna yeah yeah no you go ahead and show during that week I was away I was meant to stay till like from sort of Saturday to Wednesday my train tickets were the place I was down on the south coast and but I decided the last minute on the Wednesday to stay a couple more days I'd been like reading my Bible and walking and praying and I felt this conviction that God was leading me to give up that other relationship that I shared about and anyway so I stayed a couple of extra days and then on the Friday when I woke up I was like praying and things and then during my time of prayer I can you know I can only describe it as like a vision or a dream but it was kind of I'd say more like a vision but I was in prayer I was lying in bed and I had this sort of flash vision of I could see this woman and young woman you know pretty woman and with kind of like hair and kind of like a bright white light around her and it was like in my spirit although it wasn't like the girl in the vision directly said the words it was like in my spirit it was like I heard the words I'm coming soon and and at that same moment it was like I knew this girl I saw in my vision was from Eastern Europe like I just knew it was like not like something got it wasn't told to me it was just it was there I just knew this information it was like yeah I just knew so but to be honest I didn't think that much of it at the time I just carried on praying and the vision came and went and and I sort of was like oh that was interesting and didn't really do much else with it really by did carry on seeking God in prayer and things in this area so I guess in that sense God was answering a prayer but I didn't really realize it so yeah I carried on in my way and that was I know exactly the date it was it was Friday to 17th July 2015 yeah so that was the day of that incident do you want to take yeah yeah and so I was still in China at the time and so he said that you know in the vision it was like I'm coming soon on from Eastern Europe you know and and I was certain China and I left China on the 21st or 22nd of July so just a few days after that I landed the back in England and I you know obviously oblivious to any of those and I came to my old work I spoke to my assistant manager and I was like you know I think maybe I will meet my husband in about like one and a half years time or two years time or something like this you know maybe I will meet him in church or you know whatever and then about two days later I was in the gym and I was with my parents and my dad like he sometimes takes a long time and to like get dressed and everything get ready so me and my mom we were waiting and you know it was just kind of like I was bored and I just you know as actually like a joke I said to my mom like hey mom like do you wanna come and you wanna come and find me a Christian man like on it was just like a joke like we were just kind of messing around like on on her iPad or whatever because I'm registered to this site like a while ago but I you know hadn't been active I was in China and everything it was like a Christian dating web site and we went on the web site together and I remember seeing his profile like I literally I remember seeing it and I hadn't had like paid subscriptions so the only thing I could do was like wave so I just sent him a wave oh and my dating profile was hilarious it was like I'd actually received like some some some messages like rebuking me for the things like that as opposed like you know messages like yeah your profile doesn't sound very loving I was like okay I'm doing this dating profile and I'm basically just gonna use it as a filter to filter out anybody that's a waste of time like a whole list of things like if you watch too much TV don't message me don't message me you know if you drink alcohol yeah if you drink alcohol don't message me you know if you take drugs don't message me like I don't message me and I thought if anybody's still interested after this list you know after they read this list like how does we go somewhere I can't be bothered to waste my time anymore yeah so the week after I had been away I not had some time with God know I had this vision and I say I wasn't even thinking that much about the vision but say I was still praying about my wife and I had a really good time down there as well in a few of the ways like I met this guy down there and really ministered to him he was actually dying of cancer and he actually died not long after I found out and I really got to share the gospel with him and ministered to him and pray for him so God was using me other ways down there so a lot of that was on my mind as well and I think looking back it was almost like God wanted to distract me with something almost and so that actually I wasn't so focused on this whole area of finding a wife even though God was working in that way that makes any sense because I think God still wants to actually use us in the time we give to him so so I came back to Birmingham and yeah I just on evening I was in my room on the computer and I just kind of was like you know I was just in a place of like I want to find a wife I want to find a good Christian wife okay so I'm gonna leave this the relationship going don't be silly anymore and maybe yeah maybe my wife won't be from my church and it's funny because the same elder who's kind of my mentor give me a couple of words one being that at the beginning of that year he said you know I believe this is the year you're gonna meet your wife and also I don't think necessarily she'll be from around this area or from your church so that was interesting so I just kind of was in my room and I just decided I'll try this Internet Christian dating site and I was kind of like what am I even doing you know this is a bit stupid I don't even want to meet my wife on the Internet I wanted to meet her like in a way I don't know at some sort of conference or an event or having a bow you know that was kind of how I'd always envisioned it and so um but I just for some reason some expired me to go on this Christian dating site so I sell my profile and all of this stuff and I just prayed a really simple prayer after I sort of hit the live button or whatever just said okay Lord you can use anything you know you can use the internet you know if you want me to meet my wife this way then that's fine your will be done and that was it really I was like thank you Lord amen and so then I think I spent like a week on that site and I spoke to a lot of girls and kind of chatted and it was all very nice but you know is more like friendly chitchat and and looking at some of the profiles it was like not really sure they're like really really wanting to live for God and passionately maybe I'm wrong I mean that was just kind of that the female guy it was all kind of quite I can't explain it but anyway it just wasn't interesting me so I was on there for like a week and during that time I went to a Christian conference and I was praying again like declaring you know that stuff about my future wife so this is like a week on I guess around the time he was coming back from China and I've just decided I'm gonna go off this Christian dating site because I was like in all these messages with lots of different girls but they kind of were just like chatting and saying you know how are you and it was all kind of just like a bit like this is just a waste of time so I made this is I'm gonna come off and just before I was about to like literally delete my profile and come off the thing I had this little wave from Eva and and then I went on their profile and looked at pictures like she looks nice and the profile of wow she seems like she's really serious and then I was like oh she's from Eastern Europe from Lithuania okay and then I looked at this one picture and it was just one picture that really struck me then it was like I recognize this girl that's weird and then it was kind of just clicked that oh oh this i remember that vision like this could be that girl in that vision and so i kind of thought about that and then I thought well I like the look at this girl she's very attractive and looking at her profile she were really serious about her faith in Jesus so and then I saw as well she didn't want a man that drinks and obviously I've been on this journey to give up alcohol and so I was like hey and then I can't really remember exactly how things happen from there I know that I had a full profile BIOS I was about to delete it anyway and Eva didn't so she couldn't message but we exchanged a number somehow yeah you sent me you sent me all right so I found you on Twitter and then we managed to message that way and so then either send me a few messages nothing to longer elaborate and then that was interesting a link to her video and then that was like wow that was amazing you know this is incredible so I really enjoyed watching that and I was like yeah I definitely would like to get to know even more and shared that with her and I think it was the same time that we were texting that I you know in the past I would usually be very like non-committal and kind of I definitely wouldn't ask a girl out as quickly as I did with IVA but somewhere from somewhere for some reason I just text say maybe we should meet up for a coffee sometime and praise be to God that he did because had he just texted me stuff like how are you wish I had been with all these other people on this thing it was all just very back and forth it was no yeah because I think I am a black and white person anyway but I think even more so when I come back from China I was like I do not want to waste my time just chit-chatting to some random person you know so how did he just like spent like I don't know like a month saying oh how are you how are you doing today I'd be like I would have just ignored him I would have just stopped texting him immediately because I would even like this guy's just wasting my time you know either you know either you serious yeah and and it was and it was weak it was something in me with having seen a profile pictures and there's you know what she'd written on a profile and then watched her testimony and those assuming me that was just like I can't let this one go if that made any sense it's like so how do i okay so I'll invite for a coffee because that's the only way I can keep it going because I you know she didn't have her profile fully so I knew that unless I kind of and I knew that you were traveling to Lithuania so she was on the road you know they were traveling by car to Lithuania which is a good like 72 hour journey and she'd mentioned about her a common bead said you just on your mobile but you could lose signal battery or something at any point yeah so I kind of that's why I think there was something urgent in me there was a lot I don't want to do contact with this girl because I you know could quite easily I don't know you know she's just somebody that I've just literally met via a little message on the internet and but I really like to testimony everything so I think I just thought go for it just say you know who and then we'll deal with the consequences later and so then that was when I did lose touch with you and that was again so then I had to sort of just trust God and say okay because I didn't hear from her for another three days then yeah I'll just say when I received that text when he said I would you want to go out for a coffee I was literally about to cross the English Channel into France so I got the text and then I lost my signal like what you know so I couldn't reply until I had Wi-Fi somewhere like on the way to Lithuania in like a petrol station they had free Wi-Fi so I could reminisce in Germany so it was like several days later yeah like three days later hmm so I guess you texted me like end of the week and so by this point I'd like already deleted my profile because now I've got the contact and and when I lived in China my friend met her husband online on a Christian dating website and she told me that one of the first things that he said to her was I want to delete my profile because I'm only interested in you I'm not interested in anybody else and she told me that as part of her testimony and what Richard said to me was you know I'm gonna delete my profile I'm not interested in anybody you know I'm only interested in you and that was like whoa I've heard this before like you know yeah yes really and I mean you know I had already intended to do that but then yes he having met in the last minute it was like yeah I was really interesting that so I did you know got rid of my profile and everything and but then you know there was like this waiting game I think he was over the weekend I didn't hear from her and then I saw a kind of was just like I've sent her this long message about a really like a testimony I've got a link to my excited online I just written down and and so then I didn't hear from her inviting her coffee and then cuz I didn't hear from I was kind of thinking maybe uh maybe she saw some ink in my testimony she didn't like or maybe she's just decided she's not interested or I don't know because it's a her profile seemed very like serious so I was like violets it's probably something about me that hasn't met the standard so they came to the Monday and I was at work and I was just finally said to God Lord okay if if you don't want us to see each other and you don't want this to go in here and this isn't my wife then you know I pray that you will just you know your will be done and and that's it fine no problem you know and I give me the grace to kind of just move on and that's fine um but then by it sort of I think I got an email I could by eleven o'clock or something just before I was going on my lunch break first I think I saw had an email from Eva and she managed to get Wi-Fi and she emailed me and it was very to the point email explained it was really blunt because obviously he'd messaged me to say look you wanna go out for coffee and then I was like basically I was just like listen like I intend to live my life devoted to the gospel of Jesus Christ like this is how I see my life either you know you're in this so you're not denied like I don't I'm not interested in you know dating for the sake of dating or anything like that it was very very blunt it was like just a paragraph not you know it was kind of like this is how it is this is what I want what do you say and I was just like replied yeah okay can give it a go and I did say you know I can't say that I'm completely like there you know in terms of my walk with garden and there was still many of the you know issues and things to deal with and you know still is really but that's I think our walk as Christians we constantly been sanctified so yeah I you know I sort of said that but I said yeah you know let's let's try and meet up or whatever you want to do and I think it was from then you said about she just went straight in with let's arrange a Skype call then oh yeah of course I need to interview him I've never Skyped anyone I'd never done I mean I've done FaceTime the same thing I guess we were mates but I'd never done a Skype so Eva literally sent me up a Skype account yeah and everything so that I could Skype her and then yeah and then he's guys it was basically just like an interview because you know I think I've met too many people in the past that like I I just I knew I knew what I wanted to know and I and so I wanted to ask him so I wanted to make sure he's been genuinely born again so I was like right so what tell me about some of your spiritual experiences that was like usually one of the first things yeah very serious I mean you know it's fair enough it's just it was just quite a surprising approach like like you know what did you do it was good what did you like I was literally just like have you had a real encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ tell me some of useful spiritual experiences tell me how he's changed your life tell me what he's done for you like and it was like an interview I was just like I think I asked you like like some doctrinal questions ya know I think that was I was successful in the interview obviously and so then I guess it was you in Lithuania for another couple weeks though yeah so I had to sort of be patient again and wait until we could meet so he couldn't meet until the middle of August so bear in mind I think all this was happening at the end of July and then Eve was in English so I had to wait a couple of weeks to look at me but he worked out really well in terms of we were able to like Skype each other and get to know each other a bit better before we met and then it kind of just I think those conversations with so many things came out in that city it was quite an intense two-week period because I think we were like skyping every evening and for hours talking and just sharing different stories and just getting to know each other I think it was actually looking back a really valuable time because if I think for both of us you know first me for me who did someone who'd struggled with keeping myself pure and in relationships and things and also I used to just dive straight into relationship so quickly and I'm not saying I didn't with this one I think we did yeah but it was like God gave us a bit of grace in that area to kind of just you know we're in different countries and even when Eva came back she was in a different city to me I think that was a really important part of our dating if you like or courting or whatever you want to call it process because I think you know certainly I can speak for me that having someone around the corner from you just wasn't good for me in terms of the intensity of the relationship and keeping it pure and all those things you know so definitely there was God's hand in that in that way as well so that couple of weeks that you and if you a new is just really good because we could just talk via Skype and get to know each other we found out a lot of different interesting things that were like God moments you know that we really felt you know I mean it was good as well because we just happen to be looking through the Bible at the same time in the same place and I think back when I've gone to my sort of retreat I just started the Bible from the beginning and you told me as well you just thought you were getting recently so both sort of in Exodus I think at that time yeah and we would be sharing what we read in it yes so that was really amazing and just other things that came out of those conversations really were really incredible and you could just the more we spoke I think the more even before we leave in May was like there was a conviction that like wow this is actually like this could be really it you know and so then it came to we were gonna meet and again I think it was like God's handed how it was arranged because of those are the things I'd said before I am I had a friend in London what colleague who I was going to go and visit arranged to meet up with down in London and it just so happened that he had lots of friends in London but the timings of it all worked out I basically put my train tickets the wrong time but the wrong time ended up being quite good because I had booked to go down and see my friend and I thought I'd just be there with them like the whole afternoon and evening but actually they had plans to go out on the evening so they had to leave me around 7 o'clock so I gunned down covered 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then I was gonna be in London on my own from sort of 7 o'clock but I had a train to get back for 10 p.m. so I had like three hours to kill in London because I booked the wrong time without realizing my friend was going out somewhere else so so then you booked yeah I I was seeing my friend in London and she finished work at 10:00 so I think I came exactly yeah you're gonna be staying at your friend yeah so it was like we arranged it then in that way so we had like three hours and we just walked and oppositely like Westminster and just around all there and went on the tube and you know we didn't like go anywhere for anything like to eat or drink we just naturally walked and talked and again I think it was just perfect really in the sense that it was just like a neutral location away from both of our homes and you know you know just together I walked in and we didn't because we were just talking so much and and sharing and so yeah that was really good and so yeah it was like again I just connected so we arranged again yeah yeah and well we're running past half an hour now but basically you know we both felt you know I felt a lot of peace that this was the person from God obviously Richard had had the vision so you know I was the person from God and you know when it came to getting married it was a no-brainer really in the sense that if this is gonna go anywhere then it's not just gonna be dating for the sake of dating I mean we're gonna get married this is so we had to kind of you know I think when I was like 29 by that point as well so I'm getting up to close to my 30s so there was not thinking oh I need to get married because I'm going into my thirties but just that well you know if God wants me to be married you know Lord behind much longer do I I don't want to just I just want to stop messing about you know and and just get on with the next stage of my life really and my walk with him so there is a lot more to the story I mean obviously since Matt up until we married you know but we met on the 15th of August and we were on 2015 yeah and then married yeah like that was that first meeting of Mercer and then we were married on the 23rd of April 2016 so between meeting and getting married it was nine months you know there is more to the story than this but obviously this is how we met and I want to be fun conscious of time is unless you want to do you want to include you if you wanted to share that basically we were already engaged we got engaged in January you know in terms of the engagement was very much like you know Richard was thinking ah you know what kind of what can I do what can I do like for engagement and I literally said to God because we'd spent a lot of time like in the park together like sitting on benches and like talking and stuff and I said to God like I just want him to propose on a bench and like I've already shared that with God and I told him I've already told God how I want you to propose and yeah he he like after we went out to dinner he proposed on a bench so yeah we got engaged in in January and then in the February that was Valentine's Day and I mean like you know there's a lot of attack when it comes to getting married and being married and you know we were arguing a lot you know we were meant to have our engagement announced in church that day and we were just arguing and arguing and you know we left it we asked them not to announce our engagement at that time and you know I came I came back to where Richard was living at the time and you know it all just seemed a massive mess basically all just seemed like you know is this really of God have I gone crazy like you know are we hearing from God correctly you know so we decided to submit the Lord like we decided to you know pray whether this really was of him and everything there just check have we got it right and stuff and you know like I was feeling incredibly frustrated from the arguments that we were having and you know I was thinking I've pretty much reached like the end you know I was thinking maybe I've gone crazy and maybe like this is not completely like not of God you know maybe because obviously he had had the vision but I hadn't you know I had felt a lot of peace you know I felt complete peace you know but I thought maybe that's just false peace maybe you know maybe I've got it wrong you know and I thought I thought God like maybe I've just gone crazy you know and you know we weren't really talking to one another and I felt so incredibly frustrated because I felt like he couldn't see like my side of the story and I I literally just said to God like Lord like if this might like we're so things were calm like we'd pray we weren't talking but like the situation was not emotional at all things have like died down we just you know we were just kind of calm and just almost like you know just kind of chin but chillin like with ourselves so perhaps reflecting pattering I'm not sure I basically was still really frustrated and I said to God Lord if this man does not burst into tears pretty much the second then he is not from you and I literally I closed my eyes and I said that like several times over and then when I opened my eyes I just saw like this like loaned here streaming down Richards face and I thought no I literally I just stared at him like and then like the next thing you knew he just went ahh and then just like burst into tears like I'm funny but bear in mind I've never seen him crying up until this point it like do ya came out of nowhere but I was really annoyed like really really annoyed literally was it was like the real uncontrollable tears was like it was crazy that's it I'm gone mad and I was like that's it Lord and it was almost like I was almost saying it because I actually like almost wanted it to be over kind of because I thought we've like this cannot be over like we've gone crazy like we've gone crazy you know probably so I just closed my eyes and I thought Lord this man does not burst into tears this second he's not from you I'm like that's it my eyes and I see this tears and then I looked at him for awhile and then I just started laughing and he was like why are you laughing and then I was like because I just prayed if this man does not burst into tears and he is not from you and you just burst into tears so now clearly we're gonna get married it was a real sign yeah because it was a bit of a mess at that point so yeah that was a definite sign and so then we just pressed on from there yeah but also the testimony I heard from the engagement and was that yeah when I was like bending down to propose and on this bench in the park the moon was up and I kind of just looked up of the sky and it was like I could see these two pans I don't know if there's a lot like I roads or why it was almost like but it was like God showing me that he was holding us that was just a picture that I had in the sky above us it was like it was one of those weird things that you know you could say reading into it or whatever but to me at that moment I saw this you know almost like these two hands out like this so that was a sign to me as well which sounds incredibly romantic but when but when you're kind of in it when you're like dealing with like attacks you know it was actually very easy to forget all these things you know and it was very easy to just be like maybe like cool I think we did a really good job yeah so I hope you enjoyed this testimony about how we met yeah thank you thank you bye

Channel: ieva f

Views: 5,617

Rating: 4.9310346 out of 5

Keywords: God, Christian, Godly dating, Couple, Testimony, Way, Truth, Life, Jesus, Redemption, Christ, Messiah

Id: D3qxZQ1vuwE

Length: 40min 13sec (2413 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 18 2018