The Spirit's Astonishing Answer

By Marilyn Baker

The story begins with a woman who was not interested in meeting a man because in her mind, they are all the same. She was happy with her single life, church, job, friends, and her beloved cat. Little did she know that someone had very different plans for her. The man in the story was not interested in meeting a woman because in his mind, they are all the same. He was happy with his single life, working and going on a guy outing once or twice a year, and his beloved dog. Little did he know the same someone had very different plans for him. While my mom Rosalind Douglas-Anderson and her dear friend, Marilyn Monroe, aka, Norma Jean Baker wouldn't be here to meet and get to know Curtis, rest assured I know they are watching from above and are so happy for us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098001094

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The Spirit’s Astonishing Answer

Marilyn R. Baker

ISBN 978-1-0980-0108-7 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-0980-0109-4 (digital)

Copyright © 2019 by Marilyn R. Baker

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

My Life Before

Chapter 1 - The Start

Chapter 2 - The Beginning

Chapter 3 - The Meeting

Chapter 4 - The Statement that Became the Promise

Chapter 5 - The First Hiccup

Chapter 6 - The Beginning of a New Life

Chapter 7 - To Thrive or to Fade Away?

Chapter 8 - The Hiccup Part 2

Chapter 9 - The Next Phase Becoming More Relaxed and Comfortable with Each Other

Chapter 10 - The Trip that Unexpectedly Changed

About the Author

My prayer is that my story will inspire those who think the right person doesn’t exist. I encourage you to never give up. Stay faithful to the Lord and remember as he says, Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart (Psalm 37:4, AMPC).

Sometimes in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairytale.

To James Curtis Stone, the love of my life.

This story is about a woman and a man who were not looking for each other, but had been placed together many years before by the Lord’s design, to become one flesh in the future.

My Life Before

This was how our story began…

Let me introduce myself. My name is Gina O’Brien. I have lived in Knoxville since 2005 in the same neighborhood. At one point, my husband had a desire to move away, but the Lord distinctively told me, No, you need to stay in this neighborhood of which I agreed to because I didn’t want to move. I knew that while I didn’t want to leave, I wanted what the Lord wanted for me. I began praying that the Lord would close doors where they should be closed and to open others where they should be opened. That he did 100 percent, so we didn’t move.

During this time of prayer, the Lord also told me something else. In fact, while I didn’t understand it at that time, I would so clearly come to understand some eight years later. He told me, You need to stay in this neighborhood because you will marry a man from the south.

I said, What? Of course that made no sense, but I said okay never mentioning it to anyone and quite frankly, forgetting about it.

I became a widow after thirty-five years of marriage on Thanksgiving Day in 2015. I had just been through a lengthy illness with my husband. My role had changed from a wife to a caregiver during those years. I actually lost the man I had married several years before his physical body went home to be with the Lord.

After some time had passed, the last thing on my mind was meeting someone. I’d been through thirty-five years of marriage and didn’t want to be faced with the emotional ups and downs that a committed marriage entails. At that point in my life, I thought it would be easier to be alone with my two cats, my fantastic job, good friends, and a wonderful church. What more could I need? While everyone was telling me to Stay open and see what happens. While I said yes, I wasn’t really thinking about meeting anyone. Needless to say, the Lord had other plans for my life, and it would take a drastic change in the year to come.

Chapter 1

The Start

Fast-forward to February 2016. I met a lady at work named Erika Fields with whom I would be having a lot of interactions with. She and I became fast friends. She is a very devoted Christian—young, beautiful, full of energy, and has a great husband whom she just adored.

On top of all that while she was young in age, she also had the maturity of a forty-year-old woman. While we interacted on a daily work basis usually several times in one day, we began to talk of other things outside of work as well. Before I knew it, the year had almost passed by. During this time, I began to pray if the Lord had someone he wanted me to meet, this man would have to pass the list of ten qualities I had written down before I would even consider meeting him. I felt this was my chance to be picky about who I would be with. If someone was out there, I would go into the relationship with eyes wide open for the first time in my life. I was looking for