Matthew in Ministry

For the people who know us, this is old news.

But I haven't told my blog friends yet!

 

Matthew has surrendered his life to the ministry!!

He has ben praying about this for months, and we prayed for it together for a couple of weeks before he sent in his application and told our pastor.

 

Men in the church praying over Matthew

 

Now before I get into the details, I want to explain how this totally rocked my world in more ways than one.

First of all, I have wrote letters to "My future husband" since I was a little girl. I was encouraged to do this by youth leaders, mentors, and my parents. I have also included my future husband in many of my prayers growing up. For those of you who have followed my blog for a while now, you would know that I love to journal. I love to journal my prayers so I can look back on them and read where the Lord has brought me. Remember all He has done for me.

Anyways, I made a list in my journal of everything I wanted in a husband. Some of which included:

1. loves hugs

2. will dance with me

3. has a nice smile

4. loves Jesus

5. a youth pastor

(You can tell I was young by the qualifications I had set in my head...as you can see there was nothing like "can hold a job" or "can help pay bills")

What is so strange to me is why did I care that my husband be a youth pastor? No one in my family is a pastor, why did I just all of a sudden decide that I wanted that? I believe that desire was set in me by God. All throughout middle school and high school that's what I wanted. Someone who was planning to go into ministry. During that time, I got really into girls ministry and I wanted to be like my mentors and youth pastors wives when I got older. Especially after how much I struggled to live a life of following Christ wholeheartedly on my own. I knew I needed a mentor and I wanted to be that for other girls.

 

However, when I met Matthew, I didn't look for that qualification.

I don't know if I had given up or what.

But honestly, Matthew was everything I had ever prayed for. It was like all my prayers jumped off the page and became a person. And he was my person. I knew it from the beginning!

He was made for me, and I was made for him. I'm so thankful for God's provision in giving me such an amazing man!

Now for Matthews side of the story. He has always had a passion for kids/youth. So much so that he decided to go to school to be a middle school teacher! His passion for the youth, his passion for teaching, and his passion for Christ all collided and he made his decision to start praying about going into the ministry to be a youth pastor. (How cool is our God?!)

 

Anyways, with all this being said, I didn't tell Matthew about my letters or my prayers for him from when I was younger. God placed it on his heart. When he told me, I cried. I was a baby. I was in shock at God's amazing way of working in our lives separately and bringing us together to work for him.

 

Matthew announced that he was surrendering his life to the ministry two Sunday's ago at our church. He will be attending Mid America Seminary in the fall and will also have a full time job as a middle school teacher! I am so excited for him and can't wait to see where the Lord calls us with this new season of life.

 

picture he sent into Mid America :)

 

Snapped a few pictures of my man while we were having a bible study last night :) He got new glasses!!! And there was a gorgeous sunset so naturally I had to snap a few pics and give him a mini photoshoot.

And now his silly side comes out.....[he may kill me for these :) ]

I hope everyone has a GREAT weekend! :)

xoxo,

Lace