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Psalms Come True: A Love Story & Testimony
Thu., Feb. 12. 2015 8:56am EST
J. Jackson, lead singer for ApologetiX here again.
Since it's almost Valentine's weekend, I have a love story to share. Fifteen years ago yesterday, I met the woman who would become my wife ... at an airport in Cleveland. I'd actually "met" her a month earlier, but I didn't know what she looked or sounded like at the time. Allow me to explain:
On January 9, 2000, I went to see a friend preach at a Sunday-night service in Irwin PA. My first wife had left me the previous year, and I was facing life as a divorced man. On the drive to the church, I started singing my prayers (not something I've done often) and found myself singing "The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me."
I thought I remembered that line being in the Bible somewhere. After I got home, I decided to read a random psalm, and to my surprise, it was Psalm 138, the one that contained that verse! I'd forgotten about the prayer I'd sung on the way to church, but that verse reminded me.
That same night, another significant thing happened, although I didn't realize it at the time. I got an email from a lady named Lisa Thompson in Mayfield KY, who had purchased an ApologetiX CD online the day before. I'd sent her a "thank you" note, as I did for everybody who ordered, but she responded with a nice little email herself.
Little did I know that the ensuing email exchange would eventually lead us both down the aisle. The first time we actually got to meet in person was on February 11, 2000, at Cleveland Hopkins Airport. It was much cheaper for her to fly there instead of Pittsburgh, so we met there and drove back to Pittsburgh, where she also met my parents and the rest of the band.
Sounds a little bit like Rebekah going back to Isaac's land in Genesis 24, although we didn't get married until four months later, on June 3, 2000. The Lord definitely perfected that which concerned me, and He did it very quickly! As one of our parodies states in its title and choruses, Psalms come true!
Lisa had never purchased a Christian CD online before, and the only reason she did was because she'd heard a radio interview with me on WAY-FM in Nashville, 2.5 hours from where she lived. The broadcast was fading in and out, but she'd heard enough to know I seemed like a funny guy, and she liked the parody they played, "One Way," our parody of the Barenaked Ladies' "One Week."
Although Psalm 138 will always will be special to me, the verse that I think of when I think of my wife is this one: "Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen." (Ephesians 3:20-21). I love you, Lisa!
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