Perfectly loved – The David and Sara Saga, Part 1

“You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever.” (Psalm 30: 11-12)

“God is the only one who has ever perfectly loved me – until now.” So began the wedding vows I wrote to my soulmate, David, and read before all those who attended our wedding on Sunday, March 12th. 

“All I’ve ever wanted was to be perfectly loved,” I continued, “I used to puzzle over why something that should be so simple was so unobtainable. I didn’t want superficial love. I wanted perfect love – a love like God’s – with skin on it. I dreamed of the kind of love that would see into my soul and love every part of me – inside and out. Despite my flaws and insecurities, the perfect love I envisioned that someday someone would have for me would be blind to anything but my spirit.”

For decades, everything I experienced told me that the kind of love my heart longed for was impossible to achieve – in fact, my first husband told me outright that the love I wanted was unachievable. That statement alone paralyzed me in painful relationships for longer than it ever should have. There’s no such thing as perfect love, I thought. It’s only the stuff of fairy tales and Hollywood.

But then I met David. 

David’s road to winning my love was paved with landmines, boulders, and quicksand. While he never saw these barriers, there was no limit to the protections I’d built to safeguard my heart. I hadn’t just built a wall around it; I surrounded my most vital organ with barbed electric wire. I didn’t want to let anyone in. I was happy to give love to others. I just couldn’t allow myself to believe that what God had programmed me to extend could ever be returned. 

And then came David. 

What began as a friendship based on our mutual love of God and service slowly developed into something so much more than I ever could have imagined. 

David is different than anyone I’ve ever known my entire life. He’s the first person to honestly say – and mean – that he never gets tired of hearing me talk. I realize that’s almost impossible to imagine for those who know me personally. And yet it’s true. As a fellow writer, David understands the value of words. We never struggle for something to say to each other – and we always strive to say it with love. 

As I told David in my vows, the love I’ve hoped for but never dared to believe in was always resting inside him – just waiting for me. “I believe that God created me for you and you for me,” I told him, “I am the rib that God took from your body and fashioned into the woman that will always remain by your side. God created us for each other.”

1 John 4:18 tells us that “Perfect love casts out fear.” That’s the kind of love David and I have for one another – a perfect love without fear. 

I know fear. I lived it most of my adult life. Every relationship I had before David’s was surrounded by terror. Besides being afraid of physical violence in my first marriage, my second husband instilled psychological boundaries that held me captive for over ten years. 

I could never be perfect enough for a perfectionist controller. If I wasn’t working, cleaning, improving, or flagellating to his standards, I was worse than a failure – I was reprehensible and didn’t deserve to eat or sleep in my own house. I wasn’t allowed outside friendships – even with my family members. 

Any relationship I tried to develop outside of his was considered a betrayal – and there was always a price to be paid. I was screamed at, reprimanded, and shoved out of the house to find my own shelter overnight – no matter the weather, whether I had eaten, or even if I was dressed for the elements. I learned to accept that my existence was unimportant. I didn’t deserve kindness, let alone love. 

And still, my heart dreamed of it. God gave me love. Without the love of my Savior, I could have easily succumbed to the belief that I didn’t deserve to live. But with God, I always knew I was valued. I believed no one on earth could ever love me like God did until my heavenly Father sent me David. 

David knew the value of being invisible himself. His mother died when he was 15, and his father didn’t know how to show love. For decades, he struggled to find his own self-worth – something he had never learned at home. David also didn’t know what real love was – even though he looked for it everywhere. 

When David and I met on a Samaritan’s Purse bus in FL, he said he immediately knew I was different from anyone he’d ever known. “Is she the one, God” he later told me he questioned when I offered to share my lunch with him on our first meeting. From the beginning, David felt God telling him to take it slowly with me – that he should be patient and show love. 

And show love he did. The day David drove eight hours to surprise me with the gift of his presence after one of my kitties died, my walls were demolished in one fell swoop. As David wrote to me that morning, “What I’m sending you, my love, is my heart. It’s my dedication, devotion, and determination to show you how much I love you and want to be with you!” 

After dancing around in shock when David – instead of a long overdue delivery driver – showed up on my doorstep at 9:20 that evening, I knew this man was different. No one had ever given me such a precious gift before. No one had ever made me feel as valuable as David did. My electrified barbed wire was obliterated. I was utterly and completely in love with David’s beautiful heart. 

Last October, David and I both surrendered to God and drove hundreds of miles to serve our Heavenly Father by helping others whose lives had been turned upside down by a hurricane. I could never have envisioned that in doing so, in complete surrender to God, He would bring me my soulmate. 

But it was there – on a bus that neither of us should have been on – that I met David, my future husband – six months ago today. There he was – without a lunch. And there I was with more than enough to share. How the angels must have rejoiced that day when we set in motion what God had planned for us before we were born. 

From our wedding day forward, I promised before God, our family, and friends to always share my lunch and everything else I have with my husband. I pledged to stand beside him no matter how difficult the circumstances may be. I promised to serve God with him while loving him wholeheartedly, encouraging him, helping, taking care of, and spending eternity with him. God created David for me and me for David. Our saga is just beginning. 

We vowed that we will be together forever, wherever God leads us. Our love story is timeless. Together, we have found perfect love through Christ. He is the cord that ties us together. As Ecclesiastes 4:12 reminds us, “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” With our Heavenly Father as our center, David and I are finally free to be who we were meant to be. 

Together, we are stronger in service. Together, we are complete in Christ.  

I finally know what it means to be perfectly loved – and I couldn’t be more grateful to my Savior for teaching me what that really means – first by Himself and then through a man who loves me like God does – with skin on. 

After all, there’s never been a moment when David, I, and you, my beloved reader, were ever not perfectly loved by Christ.