This is our story.
As the Lord directs our path and writes our story,
we just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
How God Brought Us Together
It started with a picture. Sonia had written her first book, Rise Up My Beloved, and was sharing it online when Derek came across one of her posts. He was in a dark place in his life at the time, and something about the woman in that picture caught his attention. It wasn’t simply her smile. It was the joy behind it. He saw something in her that he knew was missing in his own life.
Derek wanted to write to her, but almost talked himself out of it. Who am I? Why would she even look my way? Still, something in him said he had to at least say something, so he sent her a message. Then he waited. And waited. It would be about a month and a half before Sonia finally answered.
From there they began corresponding, and when they finally spoke on the phone, it felt as though they had known each other their whole lives. There was an immediate connection between them, and before long circumstances neither of them had planned brought them both to Cochrane, Ontario, where they ended up serving in the same church.
But Sonia had seen something else in Derek too—a darkness. Derek had been honest with her about his struggles, including his struggle with lust. Sonia wasn’t afraid. She knew what God had delivered her from in her own life, and she believed in His power to set people free.
On May 15, 2010, Derek and Sonia were married in Cochrane. They believed God had brought them together, and looking back, they still believe that. What they couldn’t have known was just how deeply the darkness Sonia had seen would follow them into their marriage, or how far God would eventually have to take them to bring it into the light.
Teach Me To War
Not long after the wedding, Derek found work in Prince George, British Columbia, and the two of them packed up and headed west to begin their life together. They found a home and began looking for a church. It was a new marriage, a new city, and a new beginning.
But the darkness Sonia had seen hadn’t disappeared.
Derek had told her before they married that he struggled with lust. Sonia knew his struggle was there, but until one Sunday morning in church, she had never really understood what it meant.
A woman walked to the front of the church, and Sonia turned and looked at her husband. In that moment, she saw something in him she had never seen before. Suddenly, what Derek had told her was no longer something they had talked about before getting married. It was standing right in the middle of their marriage.
When they got home, Sonia asked him if what she had seen was what happened to him when he looked at other women.
Derek said yes.
It hurt more deeply than Sonia had expected. What she once believed they could simply overcome became a source of hurt, anger and betrayal between them. And it wasn’t going away.
Then one day, Sonia went into their bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed. Looking out the window, three words came out of her mouth:
“Teach me to war.”
She didn’t fully understand why she had said them.
She had no idea how much those words would come to mean.
And she certainly didn’t know yet what the battle would cost them.