Into the Fire

As Dick was shaving in the bathroom, he smiled to himself. The girl of his dreams slept, still lying there in his bed with her blondish hair tousled and covering most of her face. He stepped over to the doorway just to look at her and thanked God for helping him through their courtship. He would have never been able to resist her if he hadn’t finally understood the pure covenant of a marriage commitment—that the commitment wasn’t just to each other but to Him. That’s why it had to be holy. The value of that holiness became apparent on their wedding night when two people who had previously bought into the lifestyles of this world had been able to present themselves as new creations bound not only to each other but to Jesus in an acquired innocence never before experienced in its fullness by either of them. Lovemaking done the way God designed it to be proved beyond all description. Truly and inexplicably thrilling. And it continued to be.
He admitted to himself that although he still loved his job as racing secretary of The Willow Racing Park, he no longer felt bound to it. In the last couple of months he’d turned his job completely over to the Lord. It was no longer his job, it belonged to the Lord. What that would eventually mean he tried not to think about or imagine. No point. He wasn’t going to backtrack. No matter what, he was going forward with the Lord.
He’d welcome Harry and Helen at the track tomorrow putting up the signs Cee had made to announce the Tuesday meetings, and once again racetrackers would be challenged to investigate Jesus Christ. He realized he was anxious for them to start, anticipating this season more for what the Lord might do through those meetings than for the racing itself. Last year he would’ve chastised himself for it, thinking he was being negligent toward his job. Not anymore. He would give his job his very best just as he’d always done only now he knew it no longer held the number one priority in his life. For some reason, that gave him peace.
The four of them would be having dinner together, and he cherished those times. Once a month they faithfully managed to go out to dinner together, and he soon realized those dinners produced some of the best times of his life.
He finished getting ready and went to sit beside his wife on the bed. Bending down to kiss her, she surprised him by pulling him close to her.
“I love you, Dick,” she said, her voice sleepy.
“I love to hear you say that, beautiful.”
“I’ll never stop.”
“Neither will I.”
He prayed for her, and she for him before he left her there and went to the track in the darkness.

(Excerpt from For His Glory; sequel to Hope Of Glory)