So, shortly after Thom told me he didn't believe in God, and I got over the shock, we started talking about my beliefs. He realized that he could believe in a God that communicates with us, and that he probably had that belief his whole life. He just didn't know that people believed that that God existed. We decided to start praying together, which was a little strange at first, but then we really enjoyed it. We started to attend the Catholic church every other week, alternating with the church of his birth, the Congregational church, where his parents attended. We wanted to decide on one denomination that made us both happy. Thom didn't want to become catholic, for various reasons, and I have already told you how I had visited various churches during my high school and college years, and didn't want to change churches unless I agreed with the new church's doctrine. Thom wanted to go church hopping to get our answer. But having let God direct my life for all of my life, I told Thom that we should just pray about it, and God would lead us to his true church on the earth today. So we asked God what church we should join. About a week later, we got an invitation from the Baptist church down the street. The moment I picked up the invitation, I knew that it wasn't from God. I don't know why, but I knew immediately that it wasn't our answer. So, we waited patiently.
In the meantime, we prepared for our wedding, in July. We made very spiritual preparations. It was important for us to write and sing at our own wedding, and to have friends and family play a song I had arranged. We wanted God in our lives so much that we decided to ask God to join us in our marriage...to become a marriage of three. At that time, we were also making many changes in our lives. We decided to stop drinking alcohol, because we didn't want to start out as social drinkers, and then have alcoholism creep in and destroy us while not being able to admit we were becoming addicted. So we had our last drink as our toast at our reception. We also decided to pray together regularly. I also stopped drinking coffee a few months earlier, because I had gotten hooked on coffee, and it was affecting my teaching in the Duxbury School system. My head was spinning all the time, and I couldn't focus on my students. Also, Thom hated the smell of coffee. We made plans to start reading the Bible on our honeymoon, and to clean up our language, which, as for me, was pretty foul in my teenage/young adult years. I jokingly commented to Thom one day, saying "we should become Mormons..." Even though I had dated the Mormon boy, he never really told me much about the doctrine, so I never really knew anything, except what everyone knew...that they didn't drink, smoke, swear, etc... therefore, I had never checked that church off my list of ones I would never join...and I did remember saying to that boyfriend that I would be a member of his church someday. However, at that moment, I wasn't thinking about that; I was just being silly.
So we got married, and it was beautiful, at least to us. To others it may have just dragged on. But we felt God's presence very strongly and knew our marriage was ordained of Him. We also got the feeling that we were embarking on an incredible life together...that God intended something very important for us, that we would accomplish only together. We felt very tingly! On our honeymoon, in Cancun, we went looking for a Bible, because we had planned to start reading it together, and I had left mine at home by accident. (Incidentally, when I came home it was right on the corner of the couch in the living room, in perhaps the cleanest house I had ever had.--I couldn't understand why I had missed it) So, I opened up the drawer, found a Bible, left by the Gideons, and A BOOK OF MORMON! It was a Marriott hotel, and Marriott is a Mormon, so he puts them in all his hotels. I held up the book, showed Thom from across the room, and said, "Thom..." He just stared at me with his mouth open. We both felt like we had been hit over the head, and stunned. We knew without ever opening the book that this was our answer from God. His Spirit was telling us so. We had found our church.
Next post...What we did after we found the Book of Mormon
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