When Dana started dating Rick, a black man, she anticipated that her parents would struggle with it. Being of a different generation, she expected that it wasn’t something her folks had seen much of. However, convinced that because she was their much-loved daughter, her parents would swallow their pride and embrace her partner into the family.
But she could never have imagined the horrific response she would be met with when she decided to disclose the relationship to her father, along with her decision to marry the man that she loved.
“I intuitively knew even though my Mom and Daddy raised us to love everybody, that being in a relationship with Rick at that point would be something they would struggle with,” Dana explained in a video story from the Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas.
Still, she mustered up the courage to declare her love for Rick and inform her parents that she was going to marry him.
“I told him Daddy I have met a man and I love him,” she said.
Their response was extremely harsh: “Mom and Dad asked me to leave the house,” Dana recalled. “When I was allowed to come back home, they were resolute that they were not going to accept our marriage, and that he (Rick) would not be welcome in our home.”
For Rick, this was painful, confusing and mightily angering.
“You can just fall victim to this rage and anger,” he said. “Dealing with this three years the other side when we were married was something we were constantly battling.”
But through it all, Dana felt the Lord beginning to teach her a crucial lesson.
“I was only focusing on my parents. How can they not see how wrong they are?! I didn’t see my own sin that I cared so much about others and what the world was thinking about me,” she said. “He showed me that I was just as guilty as they were.”
Despite their best efforts, they had made no progress with her parents. They wondered where God was in this situation. Why was it not getting any easier?
“I couldn’t even pray anymore because I just felt so heartbroken,” Dana explained. “You just wrapped me in your arms and said ‘Lord, we can’t do this anymore, we give this to you.'”
Rick explained the absolute bewilderment the couple faced as they wrestled to understand God’s plan for their family.
“We don’t really ever have the luxury of fully understanding what God’s plan is,” he said.
It seemed as if there was absolutely nothing left for them to do but cry out to God.
Then, as they did this, everything changed with one phone call.
“I picked up the phone and my parents said ‘we’re ready to meet Rick.'”
“God said ‘this is my battle, this isn’t yours.'”
The couple eventually met Dana’s parents. It was a powerful moment.
“It was like I had met them before like I was a long-lost son or something,” Rick explained.
Later, Dana’s parents met their grandkids.
It was an incredible breakthrough, but the lingering hurt does not just go away. It took time to work on the broken relationships.
“Reconciliation is a process, it’s not a moment,” Rick explained. “There were certainly moments along the way that stand out. But overall it was a long journey.”
“He worked it all in His timing,” Dana declared. “I struggled caring what people thought about me until this situation.”
“Through the situation,” Dana said, “God taught me that I’m fully accepted by him.”
Watch the powerful video below:
Rejected by family, the Porters entered their marriage in a season of hurt, longing and praying for reconciliation. As they trusted the Lord, He sanctified and restored their relationships. #TVCStories
Posted by The Village Church on Tuesday, January 23, 2018