The Gentle Savior

***

Return to your rest, my soul,
for the Lord has been good to you.

For you, Lord, have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling,
that I may walk before the Lord
in the land of the living.

Psalm 116:7-9

I got married!
Mr. & Mrs. Christian Pechuekonis
April 15, 2017

Nearly 13 months ago I took a chance and answered a message from a nice looking man named Christian on an online dating site. His profile identified him as a follower of Jesus and a widower who had cared for his wife through a two-year terminal illness. Reading between the lines, I sensed a good-natured man of integrity. He seemed like he might, at the very least, be good friend material. I agreed to my first, first-date in 38 years. So weird.

I had set up my dating site profile four months earlier and had experienced practically no interactions up until then, which was fine. With a couple of years of grieving over my broken marriage out of the way, I felt mostly content with my life—fulfilling job, healthy church, rich female friendships and challenging volunteer work. Still scarred and a little cynical about men (and God, to be honest), I felt no real urgency to have another man in my life and expected that dating would be about an even mix of thrill and disappointment.

That’s where God really surprised me. Christian and I hit it off pretty quickly, even though I tried to maintain some skepticism at first. Within weeks, we both knew that something special was happening. We hold opposing political views, which I previously assumed would be a deal breaker. We discovered, though, that our differences in thinking about both public policy and theology just make the conversations more interesting.

More importantly, our dispositions are amazingly similar, we enjoy many of the same activities (like exploring historical locations) and we always feel so at ease with other.  From early on, I just kept telling people what an incredible gift from God this man was for me. I could not, and still cannot, believe how much we simply adore each other. I’m black and blue from pinching myself.

I won’t go on and on. One thing led to another, as they say, and here we are married as of April 15 and as happy as clams!

We were lured away from Charlottesville by what seems like a magical 1920s stone foursquare house in beautiful Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.  When we saw it, we decided that a new community might be just the ticket for our new life together. Everything fell into place to bring us here: home purchase, job transfer for Christian, two home sales and two moves—grueling work, but here we are. (I’ll tell you more about the new house in a future post.)

Our biggest challenge now is finding a new church home and watching for how God wants to use us in this tiny, historic, tourist town. We definitely want to be generous with the spacious home and lush gardens we are now caretakers of.

If you’ve wondered why I haven’t been posting on the blog for a while, it’s because I’ve been a little busy with all this exciting stuff.  I can only repeat the words of Psalm 116 as I stand in awe of the blessings God has showered on me:

What shall I return to the Lord
for all his goodness to me?

I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord.
I will fulfill my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people.

Psalm 116:12-14

BTW, note my new last name Pechuekonis, pronounced “Petch-uh-koe-nis.”

*Thanks so much to Rachel Langerhans for her beautiful photography!