Saturday, Jul. 26, 2003 - 11:23 a.m.

Luck of the draw

When the bus rider and the dark haired girl met years later, God was the farthest thing from their minds. Romance was in the air and a few months later, they married. They had planned to get married at the courthouse, but bus rider's mother insisted that they marry at her home with a real preacher in charge. There was even a wedding cake! The dark haired girl's dad was probably drunk, the red haired sister was staying with friends, and the mother was in a mental institution. Everything the dark haired girl owned, other that her bay mare and young grey Arabian stallion, was dumped in a big cardboard box and placed in the back of the big blue Ford farm truck that they drove down to bus rider's home. The hard top convertible that had caught her eye a few months earlier was in the shop.

Bus rider saw nothing out of the ordinary about a home wedding with his older brother and wife as witnesses, a cake baked by his mother, and flowers all over the living room. Dark haired girl came from a vastly different culture and her way of coping with this new one was just avoid thinking about it (does that sound familiar?)

The day after the one night honeymoon, the newlyweds drove to his new job, working for older brother. They had bought a 27 foot trailer, with running water and a bathroom! As they neared their new home, they stopped for lunch. Bus rider only had hundred dollar bills so she gave him all the money she had--$16. It was years before she had any extra in her pocket again.

The very next morning, they had a visitor- older brother. He began talking to bus rider about the God they both knew. Bus rider had slidden back very far, but he found no place of disagreement. Dark haired girl sat a few feet away in the kitchenette and listened to a story she had never heard of. A God who loved her so much that He sent his only Son to die for her. A God who would 'save' her if she repented and accepted his Son. She knew immediately she was hearing the words of life. But repent? Why, she wasn't so bad, no worse than any one she knew. So she was a little rough around the edges, so she wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth like bus rider. She was as good as any one. Besides in her heart she knew that some of the things she liked to do probably didn't lineup with what God's kids did. Smoking for one thing. Why, she loved to smoke. This God thingy would just have to wait.

Several months later, on a drive to see her folks, bus rider found out that promises made to God were pretty serious. This dark haired girl was the one he remembered from so many years ago. DOOM!!! He was fated to be with her forever. You can't throw away something that God gives you.

God's heavy hand was daily upon bus driver. Turn around, turn around. Come back to your Father. Each circumstance that rose in their lives served only to remind him that the 'Hound of Heaven' spoken of by the poet Francis Thompson was on his trail. He was between a rock and a hard place and God was bearing down hard.

As he gazed through the glass window at his first son, he cautiously counted fingers and toes, certain that now God would wreak retribution on him. He wondered what chance this little one would have with a back slidden father and an unsaved mother. Soon a second son joined the family, and a third son. The rock got heavier and heavier and the hard place harder and harder.

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