The Pastor couple that started our Church, Keven and Lisa Evans left us behind in a sense a few years ago to start a full time mission ministry in Shanghai China.  We attended a yearly dinner gathering the other night, its called Cultivate Leadership Partnership.  We have thrown some money their way and I mean thrown as in, ok we should probably do this and at the same time admitting  our hearts were not really caught up in it.

They played these videos of testimonies of many  people who have crossed Keven’s and Lisa’s way.  Two things really really stood out to me.

• One the deep depravity of any spiritual awareness.  China is hundreds of millions of adults trying to make their way purely on their own senses and know-how, it’s the result of decades of a  Communistic Atheist Culture (Thank you Chairman Mao). This is yet another piece of history I have read fairly extensively on so I got that part before but, I had never really seen the results up close.
• More than half the testimonies focused on re-stored, healed or at least on-the-way marriage relationships.

I left telling Leisha Chinese are sooooooo different than me in so many other ways except this one thing.  A history of a messed up marriage full of tension, frustration, debates, arguments, lack of patience, demandingness.  And I did this to myself in a country that has sooo little atheism in reality.   But yet, our  marriage has been so restored, so redeemed, we have come so far and  we are not done yet !!!!

When I look back over the past 3 years I see so much Jesus and the works of the Holy Spirit in both of us, that is in itself proof of this complex, mysterious Trinity we worship and have tried so hard to put as Lord over our lives.

I now want to give so much more just for that one reason, help that cause of restored relationships that were broken just like mine because I applied so much of my silly thinking. I guess you could say I can relate !

All of that hit me hard, it really moved me deeply.

This is Leisha’s and my anthem right now.  Several times in the last month I have been on the back porch with her, played this song and just looked into her eyes with tears running down my face.

David Gray “Please Forgive Me”.  We are going to the David Gray concert this Friday night and I am going to this concert  pretty much to hear this one song live !   (trying to figure out how I am going to get her to look into my eyes as I sing this to her yet again)