The Story Of Us: Part 2

I’m finally back with a continuation of the story of how Alex and I met + got together! Before we continue, make sure you read the prologue first and then part 1. Alex & I love how God wrote our love story. We’ve shared that story to many, and have been asked to share our wedding vows to youths learning about God-centered relationships. But I’ve struggled with writing about it because it is so very personal + sacred to me. Also, every time I’ve sat down to write this story, our marriage has come under attack and I’ve given up. But over the past year God has been challenging me to do it – let His work in our lives be a light to others. Because it’s not just about how God wrote our love story; it’s about how God came into the lives of two broken people and wrote something beautiful out of that mess… and how we get to live the story He’s still writing. So this is our story, the story of us.

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So a little recap because part 1 was posted almost a year ago! We ended off the first part of the story with Alex and I arriving at the same conference in June 2011 as complete strangers amidst 1,000 other people. By that point, God had brought us both individually through a year of intensive “revival prep”, and we were both full of zeal from the Holy Spirit for revival + unity + a prophetic generation in South East Asia. (Note: we had the zeal, but it took us a few more years to learn to walk it out with wisdom… and we’re still learning!)

We were also lonely. We wondered if anyone else would ever understand the intensity of the past year + the big things God was speaking in our prayer closets + the journey we each felt called to ahead.

That’s me on the bottom-right in June 2011, on one my rare count-with-one-hand days out of the prayer closet. Because some people want to know, my hair was much shorter then because I’d shaved it off a year ago (to walk with someone special through a difficult time) and it was growing out again at that time.

Samantha (Open Heavens Conference, June 2011)

I was late for the first session. I had just leaped off a ferry from Batam Indonesia, where, over the past 3 days, God had placed a burden for that nation in my heart for the very first time (it’s pretty cool how this happened right before I met Alex, who is an Indonesian, at the conference. God’s pretty sneaky like that!).

I soft-stepped into the large hall, found the closest + most inconspicuous seat available, and sank into the soft seats with a sigh. I was tired from the morning’s travels back to Singapore, still trying to process all that had happened over the past few days, and quite frankly, I was heart-sore. I’d been spending so much time waiting on Him in the prayer closet that I hardly met people any more + I had probably alienated many of my friends. I knew it was His season for me, but it was hard to keep the faith sometimes and it was crazy lonely and I just really wanted a friend who could say, “God said this + that to you?! So cool, me too!”

As I sat through the sessions on that first day, I was so moved by the bond that James Goll and his late wife Michal Ann Goll shared. They were ministry partners + apostolic leaders + a father and mother to prophets… but most of all, they were second-best-friends whose first best friend was Jesus. I’d never seen a friendship and love like theirs before, and this prayer kept wafting up to heaven from my heart, “Lord, if I ever get married, I want a marriage like this or none at all.”

A fresh vision for Kingdom marriage was birthed in my heart. Little did I know that the Lord had set it all up to prepare me for my first encounter with Alex.

During the tea break that first afternoon, I eagerly made a beeline for the book table, hungry for all the books that could teach me more about God. When they announced that the next session would begin shortly, I had to kinda burrow my way out of the throng.

And that was the moment.

With my head down in an attempt to squeeze my way out of the crush, I bumped right into a tall, solid, immovable pillar wearing a tucked in Nike shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Startled, I looked up and came face-to-face with his conference nametag “Alexander Wiraatmaja”.

Alex in June 2011. He was the guy everyone knew as “the dude who wears t-shirts tucked into jeans and sneakers” :p

Alex (Open Heavens Conference, June 2011)

“I was excited. I was lonely but didn’t know that I was. I was in a new season and it was the first prophetic conference I would be attending. From the start of the conference, I knew that James Goll had a prophetic word for me. I waited and waited, but nothing happened on the first day.”

To be continued.

(I promise it won’t take a whole year this time)