Jasmine's Story

Jasmine and Alex

Jasmine and Alex had known each other on and off since grade school, doing school activities together and going on field trips.  They were both brought up in solid, Christian homes.  They had all the same playmates.  They didn’t reconnect until their sophomore year of high school when they became good friends while serving together in the youth group at their church.  Jasmine sang on the worship team, and Alex worked the sound system during the church services.  They both had crushes on other people and would discuss them with each other.  They had a respect for one another early on, and their communication was open and honest.

Growing up, Jasmine was taught the value of her body and the value of sex within the covenant of marriage.  She was taught it was a beautiful thing and not something to be ashamed of.  At 11 years old, Jasmine made the decision that her relationship with Jesus was hers.  Her parents made it clear it was her choice.  It was to be her relationship with the Lord and not through them, because it would not have been enough if it was just through them.

When Jasmine was 15, a lot of boys were asking her out or pursuing her.  She asked her parents what their thoughts were on dating, and they told her to ask the Holy Spirit what He thought.  She prayed about it and decided that she wanted to focus on high school.  Many of the boys her age were not mature anyway.  She made the decision not to date until she was at least a senior in high school. 

During their sophomore year was when Jasmine and Alex grew to be best friends.  Because of their open communication, they asked each other about what they thought about sex before marriage, and both agreed they wanted to wait for their spouse.  They didn’t want to be like everybody else.  Many of their classmates around them, in public school and in private school, were already having sex.  Jasmine and Alex thought purity was a valuable thing.  It was something beautiful to wait for.  If they ever had feelings for one another they promised to tell each other right away.  It wouldn’t be over the phone or by text but would need to be face-to-face.  They valued that type of communication while many of their friends seemed to hide behind their phones.  By the time she reached her senior year, before her 18th birthday, they both realized feelings for each other the same weekend. 

Throughout their friendship, when there was something newsworthy to tell each other, they made it a plan to tell it in person during youth group on Wednesday nights.  They both volunteered the following Wednesday, and so they were at church early.  They asked each other, “Oh yeah, what did you want to tell me?”  And that’s when they both confessed their feelings for one another.  She asked Alex, “What now?”  He said, “I want to be with you, but let’s not rush this.  There is no rush.  We’re young.”  They were both just seniors in high school. 

Another thing they talked about, besides saving sex for marriage, was that they wouldn’t date around.  They didn’t believe in dating for experience because that was just practicing for divorce.  Dating should be unto something greater.  They both wanted it to be unto marriage.  Jasmine’s parents printed out a list of rules from a ministry that teaches healthy teen dating.  Alex was over for dinner one night and they handed it to him and told him to read it, think about it, and then come back.  Some of the things he read were:

No hands below a certain point.

No sharing a blanket.

No napping together.

Never have the door closed if you’re alone together.

Don’t sit alone in parked cars.

The heart of it was to keep them safe.  He came back and told Jasmine’s parents that he would abide by these rules because she’s worth it. 

Jasmine admits, “We pretty much broke all of those rules.”  It was not on purpose with a rebellious heart.  “We didn’t realize that temptation is so real.”  They came to a place about a year into their relationship where they realized that the rules were something they should abide by, but not because they were told to or because somebody else gave them these rules, but because they loved each other and loved themselves and wanted to respect their bodies and keep each other pure.  They realized they couldn’t keep any of the rules without loving God and loving each other.  They were only able to keep those rules and boundaries by focusing on their love for the Lord because they did it unto Him.  They chose to do it to honor Him.  They did it to honor each other.

Even with the best intentions and solid, good parenting, temptation still tried to creep in.  Jasmine didn’t struggle with pornography, but she struggled with the spirit of it.  She was still watching things should shouldn’t have been watching, which opened the door to the spirit of lust that was trying to get her to cave in and forget about her strong belief to remain pure.  She is thankful for the type of parents she has, but even if you don’t come from a strong family, Jasmine believes you reach an age where you must take responsibility for what is important and virtuous to you. 

The spirit of lust was a constant temptation for Jasmine.  She felt like she was repeatedly saying “No” in her own strength.  She realized that was the key.  She was trying to resist it in her own strength.  She did not yet have the revelation that she is dead to this and alive to God.  Jasmine says, “I actually have no more obligation to obey these temptations and fleshly desires because that spirit of lust is dead.  It was crucified with Christ.  And now I’m a new creation.

“It wasn’t until I moved away from my parents for a semester to go to school that I experienced true freedom and realized it was no longer me, but the blood of Jesus that really cleansed me. It wasn’t something I had to try to do or try not to do.  I was just washed by His perfect love.

“During that time, I didn’t have my parents to help me out.  I had to turn completely to the Lord, and that’s where He truly wants us to be.  I was blessed with having them as my parents but sometimes we can make even the blessings that God has given us as our god.  When we’re stripped of that, that’s when we realize that He needs to be on the throne of our hearts.” 

Jasmine was one of the first of the girls in her peer group to date and took on somewhat of a big-sister role.  She encouraged them to have friends that they could go to for accountability if they didn’t have the type of relationship with their parents that she had with hers.  She would advise them to get around other adults, married couples, and people ahead of them in life who had fruitful families that were healthy and functioning.  If they were not God-centered, she would advise them not to listen to them.  “God’s ways are better than our ways,” she would tell them.  “He’s the protector of our hearts.  He gives us these boundaries and this wisdom for a reason.  But you still have a part to play.  You have to be humble.  You have to choose to listen to the right people who are speaking into your life.”

Unfortunately, Jasmine and Alex had some poor leadership examples.  They were hearing things like “anything but intercourse is fine.”  They knew it was wrong advice, but because it was a church leader talking, they were confused, and they admitted to being naïve.  Jasmine and Alex saw the fruit of it in their relationship.  For example, any time they would cross a boundary or break a rule, they realized it brought out the worst in them.  It would cause them to fight about the smallest things.  They realized they needed the Lord in order to walk their relationship out in purity because they couldn’t do it in their own strength.  That was the turning point.  After that, whenever they were on a date or went to each other’s house, and nothing would happen, they celebrated every time.  They would go home at night, call each other on the phone to say Good Night, and they’d talk about how happy they were that they didn’t do anything to break the rules.  It felt so good.  When their parents asked them how their time together was, they didn’t have anything to hide.

That was another thing Jasmine admired about Alex.  He pushed her towards her parents.  They both knew that confessing to parents and friends was good for them, so this is how they remained accountable.  It was a blessing that their parents supported purity in such a Godly way and not in a condemning way.  They were thankful they could go to them.

Once, before they were dating and Jasmine was telling Alex about one of the boys who she once had a crush on, she told him that they even told each other that they loved each other.  Alex said to her, “Well, then it wasn’t real love.  If it was, it wouldn’t have failed.”  She was astounded by this 17-year old’s wisdom!  She was offended but didn’t want to admit that he was right.  They agreed later when they were dating that they didn’t want to use those words lightly.  They’re meaningful words.  They would be on the phone at night and there would be silent little moments, and they could feel those words hovering over them.  She acknowledged it and asked him, “What are we waiting for?”  Alex told her he’s waiting for a green light from the Lord.  He’s waiting for peace to release those words to her because they are heavy words.  One day while she was driving to his house, she felt the Lord say, “You can tell him.”  She was so excited but didn’t want to be the first one to say it.  She got to his house.  They were sitting together.  He gave her a hug.  He said he wants to tell her something and proceeded to say, “I am in love with you.”  So then she said it back to him.  When they talked about it afterward, asking each other when they got the “green light” from the Lord, he said he got it that morning when he was praying.  It was the same time that she also heard from the Lord.

That summer of 2020 was when Jasmine fell in love with Alex.  That’s when she also fell in love with Jesus all over again, in a new way.  They dated for 4 ½ years before Alex proposed.  The Lord displays parts of His character, gentleness, and romance through Alex.  She loves being loved by the Lord through her husband because that’s what a bridegroom is supposed to represent.

Jasmine recognizes from her own experience that, “The heart of marriage, purity, and holy passion is to mirror Jesus’ relationship with us.  Our focus should be on how much He loves us.  It’s from that place that we get to fall in love, love others, and love ourselves.”

Maria's Story

Maria and Jose

The air was filled with the scent of spicy grilled meat coming from the taco stands that were lined up among other street vendors as it mixed with the breeze wafting in from the Rio Grande.  Giggles and joyful screams were heard as children were playing with a worn-out soccer ball in the border city of Metamoros, just across the Texas border.  Music was heard coming from a nearby building as a group of college friends was gathering and dancing to the rhythms of the current 1980s songs.  Friends and strangers alike shared laughter as they swayed back and forth to the sounds.  Maria enjoyed spending time with her friends.  There was even one young man she danced with who was not a classmate and who she hadn’t met before.  At the end of the dance, Maria went back to her seat, and he left the gathering.  It was a small community atmosphere where a lot of the same people intermingled with one another without necessarily knowing one another.

Maria and her two younger brothers and two younger sisters were born and raised in Mexico.  Growing up, they spent a lot of time across the border in Brownsville, TX, and then they all became citizens when their father took a job in the United States.  Although she was the oldest, Maria’s brothers and sisters all married before she did.  There were certain characteristics she wanted in a husband someday but told the Lord that if there was anything in her list she needed to change, she would do it.  She also prayed that if she’s not ready and if her husband-to-be is not ready, for God not to put them together.  She only wanted it when God said they were ready to meet each other.  And God honored that.

Maria grew up Catholic and was taught to remain pure until marriage.  That was God’s way to do things.  Her parents had a Bible but she never saw them read it.  She decided she would read the Bible on her own.  The first time she read it, she came across Genesis 19:30-38, which is the passage about Lot’s two daughters having sexual relations with him.  That scared her so much that she closed the Bible and didn’t open it again until she got older.

Throughout young adulthood, she met different men who were interested in her for various reasons.  They were all from different nationalities and different skin colors.  One of the men was knowledgeable in the Bible but he didn’t have a job.  Her father told her once that if a man doesn’t work, there is something wrong.  Then she met some who were spiritually illiterate but who had more lucrative jobs.  That wouldn’t be a good fit either.  Others blessed her with gifts, and one taxi driver even wanted her to fly back home to Russia with him to meet his family.  Maria told the Lord to show her when she’s ready to meet the right one. 

Maria’s parents married when her mother was 27, and so she felt like that was a good age to be ready for marriage.  She had a boyfriend at the time who didn’t share her beliefs about remaining pure before marriage.  He did not want to wait.  The relationship ended.  Maria wanted to dedicate herself to study, church, and work.  When she was in her 30s, people told her she should have been married by now.  She seemed to know somehow that the man she would marry would like her premature grey hair and would come to where she was working.

At her brother’s wedding, a man named Jose stumbled in by mistake, looking for another venue.  Maria glanced his way as she was in the parking lot with her cousin but turned away as he was not her type.  She went back in and danced with one of her brothers.  A friend with Jose told him, “Hey, that lady is looking at you.”  Jose thought, “Nah,” and the two of them left and went to the correct place they were invited to.

Some years later, Maria was working in the cafeteria at the hospital in Brownsville.  She had already been there seven years and was ready to look for a different job, but no one was interested in hiring her.  One day a coworker called in sick, and Maria filled in for her, and so the time of her shift changed from 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.  Jose was living in Brownsville at the time, and he received a call from the welding union that there was a job opening in the hospital.  Jose asked the man on the other end of the line how he got his phone number.  The man said it was on the paperwork when he applied.  Jose was confused because he had never been to the welding union office, and did not even know where it was located.  He never applied for that position.  He went to the hospital and worked the first few days cleaning offices, and then he was told to do some pipe repair and floor maintenance.  He stopped by the cafeteria for some breakfast before his shift started.  Maria was there early filling in for her co-worker and was working the register when Jose paid for his coffee and donut.  They made some small talk.  Because she worked in a hospital cafeteria, Maria’s hair was up in a hairnet.  As Jose walked away, he said to her, “Your grey hair looks very nice on you.”

He made it a habit to get breakfast in the cafeteria for those first few days at his new job.  One morning Maria invited him to church with her.  He agreed.  Each week she would pick up some of the widows and drive them to church, and so she told Jose she’d pick him up too.  That following Sunday, Maria and Jose were in the front seat of the station wagon and four of the church widows sat in the back as they all drove to church together.

Although he had once been, Jose wasn’t a churchgoer at the time.  When Maria went to pick him up, he hurried in to freshen his breath because he had been drinking and smoking.  When the church service ended, the pastor was talking to Jose, who kept on turning his head sideways for fear that the stench on his breath would be noticed.  The pastor told him not to worry because at one time he was worse than Jose was.  Jose felt so much relief when the pastor told him that.  In fact, no one at the church criticized him or gave him any indication that they had thought lowly of him.  Jose and the pastor formed a quick relationship, and Jose reconciled himself back to God.  He had been involved in church at a younger age, but it had been several years since then that he walked away from any sort of faith.

Another relationship that formed was one between Maria and Jose.  God answered Maria’s prayers about who her husband would be when they were both ready.  Maria’s waiting for the right time and the right one paid off.  Before working at the hospital, Jose told the Lord he wanted to meet someone who loved him for who he is, regardless of what type of past he had.  Maria was that one.  The two of them discussed doing things God’s way and remained pure until their wedding day. 

Things progressed quickly.  It was in August when they met at the cafeteria.  In September Jose asked Maria to be his girlfriend.  In November, he asked for her hand in marriage.  They were married in December of that year.

Though they had some first experiences on their wedding day, the bride and groom dance was not one of them.  It was Jose that danced with Maria all those years ago at the college get-together.  They didn’t know each other.  Nor did they at the chance meeting at Maria’s brother’s wedding.  God was planning their union for quite some time.  They were finally both ready.  God’s timing is perfect.  He just needs a little bit of patience from us.

Maria and Jose have been married now for 16 years and have a ministry together providing clothing and other donations to the homeless people near the border from where they both came.

Christy's Story

Christy and Steve

There were a lot of times when Christy wanted to give up and walk away.  She even had thoughts of suicide.  “Why don’t I just die and be done with it?  My husband doesn’t love me anymore, so why am I here?” 

Christy has three sisters, all from different fathers.  When she was five years old, her mother left her father to be with another man.  This man was a preacher, and he would beat Christy’s mother.  They lived like that for many years until her mother got up the nerve to leave him when Christy was 12.  Then when she was 13, she was raped.  She didn’t get along with her older sisters, who were twins.  At 16 they were already pregnant and married.  At that time it was just Christy and her little sister living at home, and they were restricted from doing many things; they couldn’t go to a football game or to prom.  Christy wanted to be free.  She ran away from home several times and ended up moving in with her best friend and her father.  He helped her get through school and got her a car.  He taught her what being a father to her was supposed to be like.  That helped her out a lot because of all she had gone through and all that she had missed out on growing up.  Christy graduated and went on to college.  Her friend’s father helped her with all of that.

Christy’s first son was with a guy she thought she was going to marry but who then changed his mind.  Several years later, she had her second son.  That was not a good situation either, so she ended up raising her boys by herself for many years.  There were a lot of times when she would cry and ask God why she was such a bad person and why nobody loved her.  She didn’t have a relationship with her mother or her sisters.  It was just her and her two boys. 

When her youngest was three, Christy met her ex-husband.  After six months he walked in the door, grabbed a bag, and on the way out he said he wanted a divorce.  After the divorce, they didn’t see each other until two years later when they got back in touch with one another.  They remarried and were together for 10 more years.   There were many more hardships.  Then another divorce. Yes, there were a lot of times when Christy wanted to give up, but yet she knew in her heart that God had something better for her on the other side. 

Christy believes that God protected her through all she went through.  He has blocked out much of what happened to her.  She doesn’t remember a lot of it.  She doesn’t dwell on those times.  She went through stages of healing where she learned how to not have a victim mentality.  It could have turned out where she was bitter at all pastors because of what happened in her childhood, but she wasn’t.  Later, it was good Bible preaching from good pastors that helped turn her life around.  She knew she would have a better life.  That was a choice Christy made.  She wanted to find her purpose in life.  During her 10-year marriage, she spent a lot of time crying, praying, and asking God what is so wrong with her.  The Lord showed her how to walk in love and forgiveness.  He would tell her that there is not anything wrong with her.  He would tell her how much He loves her. 

There were days when it was tough, but she always knew it would get better.  She didn’t want to be like her family.  She wanted to be who God called her to be.  She was hungry for answers.

“What is my calling?”

“What is my purpose?”

“Why am I here?”

“Why did God create me?”

One of the biggest things Christy learned during that time was who she was in Christ.  She learned that the Lord didn’t hate her and wasn’t mad at her for divorcing.  “I learned that all my wrongs were washed away.  I was cleansed.  I was made new.  I was transformed.  I knew God loved me.”

There were days the Lord would just tell her, “I love you,” and she would just cry about that. 

She would cry and ask, “God, why didn’t I ever get to experience my daddy?”

“Why did my mama leave my daddy?”

She would cry about not being able to be around her father.  She would get in her closet and wrap her arms around herself and say, “Lord, I know You love me.”  She would envision Him wrapping His arms around her, and she would say, “I love you.  I love you, Christy,” and she would imagine it was God speaking to her.  But it took her a long time of doing that to really believe it.  But once she got it, she got it!  Christy knows God loves her, and nobody can take that away from her.   

After she and her ex-husband went their separate ways, Christy grew in her prayer and fellowship time with the Lord, and she was sensing an itching in her spirit.  During an intense 30-day daily prayer time, she asked, “God, where do you want me to go?  What do you want me to do?”  She knew she couldn’t stay where she was at.  She knew there was something more.  She knew in her spirit that she was going to be married again.  It was going to be a man who was taller than her, who had dark hair, and who would be on the front row when she was teaching.  God gave her that vision.  She also knew somehow that the man she was going to be with had something to do with airplanes.

Christy moved about four hours north of where she was living and became very involved with volunteering at her new church, and eventually got a job on staff at the church.  One Sunday she was checking out a customer at the church’s bookstore when she overheard a nearby conversation with a man named Steve who said to someone, “I just need somebody to go fly with me.”  Christy felt a nudging in her spirit to write her name and number down on a piece of paper.  She gave it to him and said, “Here, I’ll go fly with you,” and proceeded to finish checking the customer out.

Steve had also been married a couple times and was currently divorced.  He had recently relocated to the area from a different state, and also has two sons.  He needed to find a church that would help him get on track to do what God wants him to do and ended up at the same church Christy was attending.

After that first meeting in the bookstore, Christy and Steve went out casually a few times for ice-cream with their boys and grandkids.  She got the sense that it just wasn’t time for her.  She was recently divorced and wanted to make sure that she was healed on the inside before jumping into another relationship, so she and Steve didn’t talk for a while.  Christy just spent time in the Word of God, continuing her intimate fellowship with the Lord, listening to teaching CDs, volunteering wherever she could, doing what she needed to do, and doing what the Lord was leading her to do.  She watched Steve come and go with the kids over a four-year period.  He would occasionally date and would introduce to Christy the women he dated. 

The church started discipleship classes on Wednesday nights, and staff members helped by assisting whoever was teaching the class.  Christy was scheduled to teach the offering message for one of the classes.  Steve attended the first class.  She looked over at him and said, “I’m going to do the offering message tonight, but I need you to come do the baskets.”  She walked away, looked back, and said that she needed him to come up front so that he could pass out the baskets.  When she got up to do the offering message, she saw the same vision that the Lord had given her many years ago.  She saw Steve on the front row, he was taller than she was, and he had dark hair.  She had to try her hardest to stay focused because that was a real moment she was experiencing.  After she did the offering message, the two of them started talking.

The next day he called her and asked her if she was married.  She said she wasn’t.  He said, “Ok.  We’re not children.  We’re not in high school.  What are we going to do?”  She said, “Right now, we’re not going to do anything.  We’ll take it one day at a time.”  Christy wasn’t ready to jump into another relationship.  She wanted to know this was from God.  They just talked on the phone at first.  She told him she didn’t want him sitting with her at church.  She didn’t want people to think they were together because she just wanted to take things very slowly.  She did, however, know in her heart that he was who she was supposed to marry. 

After a certain period of time, Christy said they could start dating.  They did, but she had a lot of stipulations and a lot of questions.  They talked about practically everything, including finances, sex, kids, and religion.  The biggest thing was that Steve wasn’t going to be getting a kiss from her, or anything else for that matter.  She told him that waiting was something she knew from the bottom of her heart that the Lord was telling her to do.  She told him he would have to be a man of his word, somebody who is filled with the Holy Spirit, who goes to church, who volunteers, and she would want them both to have the same vision.  Christy tested Steve on a lot of things that were important to her in this stage of her life.  She wanted to make sure he was truly the right one.  When he’d be over for dinner and things started to get a little heated physically, she would tell him it was time for him to leave because it was getting “a little too hot in the kitchen.”

Christy and Steve dated for almost a year before they got married.  Once they were headed out of town to attend a wedding.  Steve had been working on getting his pilot’s license and was scheduled to fly to log in some more hours, so he took a quick flight, and she went with him.  He flew her over his home on five acres.  Earlier he had dug up the ground with a plow to spell out, “Would you marry me?” so that it could be seen from above.  She was looking down to see it because he had tilted the plane, and when she turned around toward him, he was holding the engagement ring and was waiting for an answer from her.  He asked, “Well?”  She said, “Yes, I will marry you!”  He almost got a kiss, but she insisted, “No, not until we’re married.”

They were married in April of the following year.  That was when they had their first kiss.  That was a big thing for Christy because of all the things she had been through as a young girl, from being raped, not growing up with her father, and having other men there in her father’s place. 

Christy says, “It’s very different for women when they don’t grow up with their daddy.  God restored every bit of that for me.  It was as if none of that past ever happened.  It was like all of my purity was back.  God is still restoring.  Everything that had been stolen from me is being restored back.  I am honored to have a husband like Steve.  He is such a good man.  I believe I have the best husband.

“Steve and I go to church together, serve together, talk about everything, and pray about everything.  There is so much communication between us.  It’s very different from the previous marriage.  When you’re living for God and you put Him first, you can’t get any better than that.  That’s the ultimate best thing that you could ever have in a marriage.”

Right now Christy is mentoring her sisters.  Her mother passed away recently.  Her sisters are relying on her.  They’re coming to church with her every Sunday.  She went from not having relationships with them to now building relationships with them.  She knows there’s complete and total restoration all the way.  It’s never too late.  God restores everything that has been stolen.