Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul

by Jennie Allen

The morning after Jessie nervously left our living room to tell her boyfriend she wouldn’t live with him, I got an incredibly long text. I assumed their relationship wouldn’t make it through this. I just thought her boyfriend, Matt, would never understand. Part of me thought God’s timing seemed poor. I hated that God might cost her so much so early. To quote my daughter Kate, they were just getting to know each other, Jessie and God. And yet he was asking her to potentially walk away from the most important person to her. We don’t follow God just because he is God, just because he is boss. We follow God because he builds beautiful stories, even if they are not easy. Jessie’s text read: Last night I was so nervous, but I told Matt everything we talked about, everything I was feeling about God. Matt listened and then he told me that God had been moving in him too. He was also convicted and wanted to please God with our relationship but he had been scared to tell me. Together they began growing and pursuing purity. In the months that followed, I would see them sitting in church together, so peaceful and so happy. God was real, and in living for him, they were finding a story that was not easy—but it was beautiful. If Jessie had not risked and obeyed her new invisible God, they would have missed so much.