MY STORY — HOW I GOT HERE
There used to be a ride at an amusement park in Texas called the Rotor Ride. You stood inside a giant spinning barrel, held against the wall by centrifugal force. Then the floor dropped away, leaving you suspended in midair until the barrel slowed and the floor rose again.
That is the closest picture of what it felt like when my mother died suddenly. I was six years old, the youngest of five. Overnight, the bottom dropped out of my world. My father, grieving and overwhelmed, didn’t know how to help us process our loss. There were no conversations, no comfort, no explanations. Just silence. Each of us learned to grieve alone.
Yet, even in that desolate silence, a new friend, Liz (Meaders) Langlinais, suddenly appeared a few months later when I entered 2nd grade. She approached me out of thin air like an unexpected angel. I was the least likely person she would want to attach herself to—shy, broken, and with nothing to offer her kindness and cheerfulness in return. But I became, and will always be, faithfully her friend. Nothing could ever separate the bond we share… nothing. She would become a steady rock in the days and years ahead.
I desperately needed that anchor, because a couple of years later, my father remarried. She had three young children of her own. Although they tried, our home life became chaotic. People drifted in and out of the house without explanation, staying for months and then disappearing overnight. My stepmother became very ill and was hospitalized several times. Then one day, without warning, I came home from school, and my stepmother was gone, along with half the furniture. No warning. No conversation. Just another disappearance. While people came and went, Liz’s loyal friendship remained—a whisper to my soul that I was never abandoned.
Growing up without my mother, with a father who was physically and emotionally absent, though our relationship later improved, I developed deep insecurities and struggled to connect beyond the surface. I was unprepared for college and eventually dropped out. Seven years later, I married, and within nine months, we moved out of state. I finished college, but feeling isolated and with no connections to family or friends, I withdrew into myself. For a few years, I numbed my pain with alcohol. But God, in His mercy, rescued and delivered me.
Yet, the childhood trauma seemed to follow me for decades. Friendships came and went with the passing seasons. Each job transfer uprooted me again, and a persistent, painful ache for true, long-term connections lingered in the background of my life.
HELD BY HIS HAND
Many years later, while praying about this lingering inner ache and my mother’s death, the Lord gave me a mental picture that reframed my entire past. I saw myself suspended in midair again like the Rotor Ride, but this time, His giant hand was wrapped securely around me. He spoke directly to my heart: “Though you felt as if you were hanging in midair, I never let you drop, and I never let you down.”
In that moment, something long hidden finally surfaced. I realized the ache wasn’t actually a need to make more human connections or the need for people to accept me. It was a pure, holy craving to know that I was wanted and desired by God Himself. For many years, I had faithfully served Him and others, but I needed a fresh, intimate encounter with the God who cherished and pursued me.
FINDING THE ONE WHOM MY SOUL LOVES
The Holy Spirit led me to the Song of Solomon, where a repeated phrase carries deep meaning: “the one whom my soul loves.” It appears four times in a short passage, signaling that Scripture wants us to slow down and pay attention: On my bed night after night I sought him Whom my soul loves; I sought him but did not find him (Song of Solomon 3:1; LSB).
The “soul” represents our innermost self or the emotional epicenter where our deepest desires and affections reside. The word “loves” refers to covenant love or a love that chooses, stays, and remains faithful. Together, the phrase describes a love that rises from the absolute deepest part of a person.
The passage continues: The watchmen who go about the city found me, and I said, ‘Have you seen him whom my soul loves?’ ‘Scarcely had I passed them by when I found him whom my soul loves; I seized him and would not let him go…’ (verses 3–4).
The phrase “scarcely had I passed them by” was so significant for my journey. It illustrated moving past a reliance on human guidance alone to seek the One my soul ultimately longed for. Human watchmen—pastors, teachers, and leaders—are valuable, but their guidance is meant to lead us into our own direct encounter with God.
As Psalm 42:7 says, “Deep calls to deep…” The word tehom refers to vast waters, the places beyond human control or understanding. God was connecting the deepest part of my childhood pain to the vastness of His love.
I finally understood that the longings we feel inside are not signs of emptiness, but signs of design. They function like a divine homing beacon or a ringing phone; clear signals that the Lord is actively calling us, desiring to speak with us and reveal His heart to ours.
Our deep ache is not a flaw to fear but a witness to life within. Dead things do not ache.
PULLED CLOSER
This is how I arrived here, at the point of writing this book. In hindsight, I realize it was never about the disconnect with people; it was God pulling me into closer connection with Himself. The long stretch of sufferings, each one different in shape and weight, became the very catalyst He used to open my understanding, showing me His path for overcoming discouragement and teaching me how to live supernaturally in a world limited by human effort.
Like a precision tool in the hands of a surgeon, the hardships we endure; from traumatic losses to relational rejections, from injustices to disappointments, become the very means God uses to reveal what He has been forming within us all along, drawing us into a more intimate relationship with Himself.
THE PERFECT FIND
One day, after asking the Lord to help me see my relationship with Him afresh through His eyes, He gave me a vivid mental picture. I saw myself strolling down an aisle in a home décor store, browsing without intention. Suddenly, something on the top shelf caught my eye. It was perfect—the color, the shape, the size, the price. And it was the only one left. It was a great find!
In that moment, the Holy Spirit whispered, “I placed this here just for you.” Joy surged through me like a bolt of lightning, not because of the item, but because I had connected with the living God. Then the Lord said, “This is the joy I feel when we connect and communicate with each other.”
That moment became the revelation of The Perfect Find. The “find” was not the object but Jesus Himself and the mutual joy of two hearts connecting. And this is the foundation of our Christian life. Jesus died to remove our sins and open a pathway to unite and communicate with the Father. As Scripture says:
…we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place… let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts, fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:19-22; NLT; emphasis mine)
Through Jesus, we now have access to the Father by one Spirit (Ephesians 2:18). Everything else in life flows from this relationship. Our identity, purpose, and fruitfulness flow as we stay joined to Him (John 15:5). Most of our struggles arise when we reverse this order, or when we try to perform our way into acceptance rather than learning from Him in quiet trust.
My story of being unseen became the doorway into discovering the God who sees… and leans in. Like the vase on the shelf, passed over, unnoticed, even unwanted, I was His perfect find. And as the woman in Song of Solomon declares, “My beloved is mine, and I am his” (2:16).
This is the heart of The Perfect Find: a relationship of shared delight with the living God. Our pursuit of Him is stirred only by His pursuit of us; our longing is awakened by His love drawing near. It is never one‑sided. It is the Perfect Find—two hearts in active, joyful pursuit of one another.
Just as God met me in the depths, He is calling to you as well. The yearning you feel, the ache you cannot name, and the restlessness that rises in unhurried moments are not signs of emptiness, they are signs of design. They are the inner places within you signaling a personal invitation to meet with your Creator one‑on‑one in secret.
Your story is not accidental. Nothing about your path is random. You were crafted with intention, pursued with love, and invited into a relationship designed uniquely for you. The God who desired me is the same God who desires you, personally, specifically, and passionately. He wants to speak to you in the ordinary moments, illuminate your heart with an awareness of His presence, and show you that you are wanted and cherished in a way no human relationship could ever replicate.
Enjoy the Find!
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