Our Love Story: Becoming Husband and Wife

(This is the story of how my husband and I met and fell in love. If you are just now jumping in, you can catch up on last week's post or start back at the beginning.)

Over the course of this Our Love Story series, I've been looking back at how my husband and I met and fell in love. To give you something of a timeline of everything that's happened so far: We met in June, started dating in August and dated long distance for the next nine months. During that time, we had our share of ups and downs, but through it all, we became more convinced—even after less than a year—that we wanted to be together. Like, get married.

To some, it might seem that we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into and that we were letting our emotions rule our heads. I understand the sentiment and the fear, but the truth is that there was more at work in this relationship than just me or him. I truly believe that from the very beginning, God was at work here, too.

So in May, after nine months of dating with a 16-hour car ride between us, my husband asked me to marry him. By this time, we had gotten to know each other very well through our daily phone chats, which weren’t just limited to how you spent your day but also what you think about this aspect of faith or how to deal with this dilemma or that hope. We also had gotten to know each other through even the conflict that comes hand-in-hand with relationships.

Through it all—the ups and the downs—we knew that this was the real deal. We saw in each other things that made us both want to be better people, to love God more deeply, to have a more humble and compassionate spirit. In some ways, we were very different (I talked a little bit about that here), but we saw in each other complements—that we had so much to learn from one another and be inspired by and be challenged by.

So that night in May, when my husband got down on one knee, I said yes. (After inquiring multiple times, "Are you serious?" because I had convinced myself an engagement wouldn't be happening for a few more months and was actually shocked it was happening! Plus, I'd also gotten upset at him earlier in the evening so the fact that he still proposed even in spite of that added to the shock.)

As I’ve said all along, this relationship was nothing if not humbling for me. How he could keep loving me after the things I said or the way I behaved just was proof to me again and again that this man really practiced what he preached. He loved a compassionate God, so he showed compassion. He loved a forgiving God, so he forgave.

It was truths like that that made it easy for me to say yes to him and be ready to marry him. Ready to marry him, like, tomorrow.

But of course, that’s not how weddings work. They take time and planning. And so even if you’re ready to get married tomorrow, you usually don’t. You print out invitations and buy a dress and make cute little crafts and have everything look picture-perfect.

So since tomorrow wouldn’t do, we settled for ten weeks. (If you're doing the math, we got married just a few weeks shy of the one-year anniversary of our first date and only a year and a couple weeks after the first time we met.)

I think a lot of people probably thought we were crazy for that, too! But for us, we were simply ready. It wasn’t a wedding we cared about, but a marriage and a life together that we were after. It’s kind of what we’d been after all along; neither one of us were dating for the fun of it. We were doing this thing because we thought it had potential, and for us, that potential all along had always been marriage.

That was just over three years ago. And now we're getting ready to add even more love to the union with our baby-on-the-way!

It’s thrilling now to look back on all that’s happened between us and to see how the Lord wrote and directed this love story of ours from the very beginning, when it seemed like all I could do was put my foot in my mouth and make a fool of myself. But of course, God is bigger than that and he always has a way of working these things out, whether it’s overcoming our own mistakes or hundreds of miles of distance.

And here we are today, three years in and it keeps getting better every day. Thanks, one hundred and ten percent, to the grace of God who cares about every detail of our lives, even who we fall in love with.

Thanks for reading along in the Our Love Story series. You can catch up on all the posts in the series here.

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Our Love Story: The Ups & Downs of Dating

(This is the story of how my husband and I met and fell in love. If you are just now jumping in, you can catch up on last week's post or start back at the beginning.)

Because we were dating long-distance, much of our relationship took place over the phone with long conversations, which really helped us get to know one another in a concentrated sort of way. So much so that just a couple of months in, we both were pretty sure that we could see ourselves getting married.

Things between us—mainly our minds and hearts for God—just clicked like they never had with anyone else before. I remember thinking that sometimes when I talked to him, it was just like I was talking out loud to myself or to an imaginary friend, the conversations just flowed so naturally and we were crazy in-sync on tons of things that mattered, like how we wanted to raise children someday or what we saw as priorities in our lives.

Being with him also really challenged me. I mentioned before that I was so impressed to see him hunkered over his Bible while the rest of the world was swirling about him; he always made that a priority. At that point in my life, my Bible reading was not so intentional (whenever I could spare the time), but he challenged me on it. He set the example but he also called me out on my own passivity. Part of it bothered me, of course, but it also showed me who this guy was. He was willing to journey through the discomfort for the sake of truth and obedience. And for my sake, too. He was a man of integrity, and I saw that through and through.

I remember early on in our relationship reading a verse that says, "I will bring you gold in place of bronze, silver in place of iron, bronze in place of wood, iron in place of rocks." (Isaiah 60:17) In its biblical context, that verse has nothing to do with dating, and instead comes when the Lord is calling his people to be faithful again and promising them that their punishment will not endure forever, but mercy is on the horizon.

But during that time in my life, I saw in that verse how the Lord makes it his gift to take what we have and dazzles us with things more brilliant than we could have even expected, much less deserve: We have bronze, but he gives us gold. He gifts us riches that make us stand in awe. I had expected someone who was "bronze." And yet the Lord did not stop there, but gave me a man who was stronger, purer, wiser than my wildest dreams. God chose to, in love, give me “gold.”

That is not to say that things were perfect between us. Things were better with him than they were with anyone else I’d ever dated and I felt more accepted and loved and more myself around him than with anyone else, period. But we also did our fair share of arguing and not seeing eye to eye and getting frustrated with each other. (A lot of it was over issues that really probably weren't the effort. I remember getting into a fight once about the evils of big-box stores and another about how much the Old Testament applies to our lives today.)

Yet, it was conflict, and conflict was something we had to learn how to process and address early on, since nearly all we had was the phone to keep our relationship going. We couldn’t just go buy an ice-cream cone and push it under the rug. It forced us to really weigh what we were doing here; were we going to fight for this relationship even when it’s difficult and when it hurts and when it isn’t pretty? Or were we just going to give up on it? We decided to keep fighting, to keep working through the issues, to get really good at apologizing and to start to figure out the dance of communication and conflict resolution and compromise and picking our battles.

But I totally believe that was another aspect where God knew what he was doing as he was writing this love story of ours. We had to face those situations (which we all face at one point or another) while we were still dating, which gave us a chance to address and learn from them then, before our hearts were married together.

And by addressing them then, those times of conflict gave us the chance to work on our communication even more. I think it really paid off down the road because although it felt like we had a lot of arguments while we were dating, once we were married, the frequency really abated and today, we find ourselves in disagreements very rarely and even when we do, we’re able—because of all the “practice” we’ve had—to address them in more constructive and loving ways that make them a lot more effective a lot more efficiently.

In that aspect, even though there were tons of bright spots in our dating relationship, it was also hard, as I think most relationships are at one point or another, in one way or another. I don't want to gloss over that because the truth is, that's par for the course in any human relationship. But it's also a chance for us to learn more about ourselves and what it looks like to live in Christ's footsteps, forgiving and serving and loving even when it takes effort to do so. And only then can we learn to appreciate those hard parts because they have the potential to shape and chisel our hearts so intimately—if we let them.

Click here to continue reading the next post in this series. Or, you can catch up on all the posts I've shared in Our Love Story.

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Our Love Story: A Long-Distance Relationship

(This is the story of how my husband and I met and fell in love. If you are just now jumping in, you can catch up on last week's post or start back at the beginning.)

One of the things that I learned during that three-hour-long phone marathon with my husband-to-be was that he was only going to be in town for two more weeks before moving back to Georgia when fall semester started back up because he was still in college.

Two weeks isn’t very long at all, but I’d already become so enamored with him that I felt—and he did, too—that it was worth it to take a chance on the relationship and see where it would lead. Even though the circumstances might make it seem like there was no hope for the relationship to flourish, there was something in me that knew that wasn’t the case.

I had been praying boldly for a godly husband for a couple of months at this point and so I had to trust what God was doing—and that God was, in fact, doing this. That he was the one working all of this out right now, and that he would continue to work it all out in the future, when we’d live more than a 16-hour car drive apart from one another.

So, we decided to take full advantage of the two weeks we had remaining and spend much of it together, going on dates, meeting one another’s families, getting to know one another better and better. And in that time, my husband was always aware of what we were doing—we were not biding time but we were exploring a relationship.

So he brought up things like our intentions and what we expected from the relationship and what we hoped for in the future. It was the first time that I was with someone who was so intentional, who cared about guarding my heart just as much as I did. It was a breath of fresh air for me—and made me attracted to him even more.

It was a whirlwind two weeks, to be sure, but it was clear by the time that he had left that we were falling for one another, and we decided to continue exploring this budding relationship of ours as a long-distance one and decided to officially make ours an exclusive ("boyfriend-and-girlfriend") one. That night, upon determining that this relationship was to be an exclusive one, we also had our first kiss, and I swear I saw a shooting star overhead.

The thing was, I wasn’t afraid of having a long-distance relationship. In my mind, I figured that if that was the way that God was going to write my love story, then it must be that it’s for the best. God could have brought us together earlier in the summer, but we spent almost that entire time avoiding each other or thinking the other person hated us. It wasn’t until time was dwindling that we actually overcame all those thoughts and fears and questions and discovered that there really might be something here.

And so I just simply trusted that that must be what was for the best—for us to live far away from each other, at least for now, and get to know one another via near-daily phone calls and the occasional weekend visit. As it turns out, of course, that was the case—God did know best.

We both look back on those times now and know that while long-distance dating is not for everyone, it was for us. It gave us an incredible chance to get to know one another’s hearts without the distractions or temptations that come with in-person dating. Much of those things were filtered out so that all we had was time to talk and learn and work through getting to know one another. We read books and discussed them together via our phone dates, talked about our days, about our dreams, about what God was doing in our lives, about everything.

It's funny to look back on it and see how simple my faith was during this time. I so simply trusted. Sometimes it baffles me to see how I responded to situations, to see the faith God gave me to traverse what would have otherwise been trying and heart-wrenching decisions. I mean, dating across the country is not a task without its cost (emotionally, relationally but also financially). Instead, he gave us both a deep peace that seemed to melt the miles and fold away the distance.

Click here to read the next part in Our Love Story. Plus, you can catch up on all the posts I've shared in Our Love Story so far!

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Our Love Story: Our First Date

(This is the story of how my husband and I met and fell in love. If you are just now jumping in, you can catch up on last week's post or start back at the beginning.)

At this point, we were back in town after spending a week chaperoning a youth group trip where we got to spend more time together and get to know each other better (the good and the bad).

Even though there'd been plenty of things that should have turned my husband off, there was still something in him that kept him interested in me, despite all my flubs and goofs. He decided to talk to the youth pastor at our church (who knew both of us quite well by this point) and tell him about his interest in me.

I'd already told the pastor about my desire for a godly husband and that it was something I was actively praying about, so he urged him to go on and ask me out. They decided to make it a group date along with the pastor and his wife.

(Of course, with the two of us, nothing is ever quite that easy!)

My husband called that night, around 9pm, but I didn’t see the missed call until after 10pm and my mom always taught me that after 9pm, it's not polite to call someone you don't know well. The voice message was brief and didn't really give any details, so even though my curiosity was running wild, I decided to do "the right thing" and wait until the next day to return the call.

(Due to the delay, my husband became even more convinced nothing was going to happen.)

But, as I was leaving work the following afternoon, I called him back. He told me he was calling to see if I wanted to “hang out” with him and the youth pastor and his wife that coming weekend. It sounded like a double date, but it also sounded just like, well, “hanging out.” I agreed but I hung up the phone still unsure what was going on here.

Fortunately for the sake of my curiosity, there was a planning meeting later that night at the youth pastor’s house. My husband wasn't at the meeting, so after everyone else left, I asked the pastor what was going on. “Is it a date or what?”

He laughed and laughed, because it was too obvious that I was totally interested in this guy. To my relief, he told me that it was indeed intended to be a date but that he’d encouraged my husband to phrase it casually so that it wouldn’t sound too intense and scare me away.

With the situation clarified, I started to get really excited. I honestly had never seen this actually happening! Hoped? Of course. But given all that had come before, I never expected anything to come of it.

The date came that Friday night, when he picked me up and we drove downtown to meet the pastor and his wife for dinner. After dinner, we walked around downtown and grabbed some dessert.

It was a fun group dynamic, but by the end of the evening, I didn’t feel like I knew him much better—or whether the two of us would actually click or not. At one point, when my husband was off in the restroom, our pastor asked me what I thought. I told him I had no idea, as much of the evening had been based on small talk and stories—not really heart issues, which is what really mattered most to me. That's what I was waiting on!

One of the things my husband will now say that attracted him to me so much back then was that I knew what I wanted. I’m not sure how I conveyed that, but I guess he knew that I wasn’t just dating for the fun of it. If I was going to do this, there wasn’t going to be any playing games or hard-to-get. Fortunately, he felt the same way, which is why he called me the very next day. None of that “wait two days” or however long “the rule” is supposed to be. He called the next day, which I appreciated.

When he called, I was a couple of hours away, visiting my best friend. So I called him back on my drive home. I had no idea what to expect when I called him back; all our other interactions had been so brief.

But this one was different. It finally felt like the walls came tumbling down and I got to really know this man. It was a two-hour car drive and I was still talking to him while sitting in my driveway for another hour or so before going inside.

I can’t remember what all we talked about, but we talked about enough stuff—real stuff, meaningful stuff about God and family and character and priorities—that when I hung up that phone that night, I knew that whoever got to marry him—me or anyone else—would be a lucky woman. It was evident from that moment that he was the real deal. He was the kind of godly man I’d been waiting for.

Click here to read the next part in Our Love Story. You can also catch up on all the posts I've shared in Our Love Story series.

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Our Love Story: Seeing is Believing

(This is the story of how my husband and I met and fell in love. If you are just now jumping in, you can catch up on last week's post or start back at the beginning.)

At the same time, while I was trying to actively pull myself away from him and fight the attraction I had felt from day one, there were other things going on that made that harder and harder to do.

While we were serving as adult chaperones for the youth group trip (which I talked more about here), I got the chance to see who this man was in a rare, close-up way. We saw each other every day, whether it was congregating in the cafeteria, meeting together in discussion groups, attending worship services together, or just hanging out as chaperones while the kids were in different sessions.

While we didn’t talk too much in a one-on-one setting, I had the advantage of seeing him interact with the teens and with the other adult leaders. I remember one day at breakfast, while a bunch of the boys were goofing off and scarfing down McDonalds, he was sitting amongst their antics, calmly and deliberately reading his Bible.

As with any teen trip, there were plenty of issues that we had to deal with, from unruly behavior to flirting to picking on each other, I got to see how he handled some of those instances, how he was talking to the guys and quoted from Proverbs or explained why, as Christians, this kind of behavior was or wasn’t right.

Since it was the heat of summer, I also remember one time when all the chaperones were going to meet up and we were trying to sort out details. My husband was the one who suggested that the guys get the van and bring it to pick us ladies up. Not sure the other guys were too thrilled about it, but I certainly was impressed!

So I got quite a few glimpses to see more of what he was like, in a real-life kind of way, that made me appreciate his heart more and more.

But at the time, I still was convinced that he did not like me, and as it turns out, he was convinced that I did not like him. So none of that really mattered all that much at the time—since it seemed it wasn’t going anywhere. Plus, there was the fact that I’m 4.5 years older than him, so that was a big factor in him believing nothing would pan out. (That and all the kind things I said to him so far that summer!)

Still, something in him told him to at least try.

For some reason, even though he thought I hated him and that because I was older there’d be no possibility, he actually was interested in me and decided to ask me out anyway...

Click here to continue reading the next part in Our Love Story. You can also catch up on all the posts I've shared in Our Love Story series.

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Our Love Story: Attempting to Guard My Heart

(This is the story of how my husband and I met and fell in love. If you are just now jumping in, you can catch up on last week's post or start back at the beginning.)

Finally, it was time for the teen conference, where both my husband and I would be serving as chaperones.

By this point, we’d talked a few times, with plenty of them involving me making personal character flubs. Humbling, humbling, I tell you.

So it wasn’t too hard for me to convince myself that he was not interested in me in the bit, which is why at the conference, I made a sincere attempt to not interact with him too much. For me, it was a matter of guarding my own heart and not let my emotions get carried away. I was sick of crushes and didn’t want to nurse this one.

There are a couple of moments during the conference that I remember vividly about this interplay where I intentionally pulled away not because I wanted to play hard-to-get, but simply because I needed to guard my heart. It was still a part of me sticking to my no-flirting vow:

At one point, we all had to squeeze into a van and the only space left when I got in was, you guessed it, right by him. At another time in my life, I would have been thrilled, but this time I nearly groaned because I was trying to avoid getting too close to him (literally and figuratively!) for the sake of my own heart. I frantically looked around for any other place I could sit. Alas, that was really the only seat, so I think I sat half hanging off to leave as much room between us as possible.

I don’t think he noticed that one, but I know he definitely did take note of this next one:

Near the end of the conference, we were to divide up into groups to pray with the teens. The youth pastor assigned me and my husband to the same group. I immediately asked if I could instead be in a group with one of the female leaders, who was also one of my best friends. I wasn't trying to be rude but I was desperate to quell the crush and keep my distance from him, even when it was under the most un-flirty of circumstances.

(When my husband remembers this incident, he took it as pretty insulting that I wasn’t even willing to pray with him. He thought I pretty much hated him. Especially after all the other run-ins we'd had since meeting. It's really a wonder anything ever happened at all. But of course, that's part of God's graciousness in this whole story, and more about all that later...)

The youth pastor (a smart man, who later presided over our nuptials) denied my request and we sat in the same group. We gathered around a picnic table with the students and again, when it came time to sit down, the only space left was directly beside him. I couldn't get a break even if I tried!

As a group, we all held hands to pray, which meant we ended up holding hands since we were sitting next to each other. At the time, I remember being surprised that when we held hands to pray, there was no “electricity” that you sometimes feel when you hold someone’s hand for the first time. It was surprising but also almost comforting in a way. I thought maybe my efforts to guard my heart were working...

But that didn't last long.

In spite of my efforts to peel my heart away from being interested in this guy, I couldn't help but think, as we sat there, holding his hand and praying together, “I could do this for the rest of my life.”

How right I was!

Click here to continue reading the next part in Our Love Story. You can also catch up on all the posts I've shared in Our Love Story.

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Our Love Story: Things Get Off to a Rocky Start

(This is the story of how my husband and I met and fell in love. If you are just now jumping in, you can catch up on last week's post here or start back at the beginning.)

As I documented before, my first words ever to the cute-new-guy-at-church-who-would-later-become-my-husband were as humbling as any: “Hi, I’m Carmen, and I need to apologize for what happened earlier…”

(If you need to catch up on what prompted the apology, you can read about it here.)

So I guess even from the beginning, God was really helping me to stick to my no-flirting vow. Because I don’t think having to apologize and admit you were wrong is going to get you very many numbers at a bar.

Since it was summer, every Sunday night the youth group got together just for the sole purpose of having fun. There was water balloon capture the flag, a night of playing cards, and plenty of impromptu trips to Sonic for milkshakes and mozzarella sticks. The youth group wasn’t especially big, so there weren’t very many adult volunteers—maybe a dozen, max. Sometimes we’d both be there and sometimes we’d chat, but it was never for any length of time at all, really. Because we were there to hang out with the teens. More often than not, if I wasn’t playing spoons with the kids, I was hanging out with the other women leaders.

About a month after we’d met, there was a weeklong youth-group trip planned to Illinois, and we both signed up to go as chaperones. As we geared up for the trip, the youth minister wanted to have a big kick-off party the night beforehand, complete with a bonfire and songs. My husband plays guitar and has even put out a CD, so he was the natural choice to lead worship for the event.

A week or so beforehand, he sent me a message on Facebook, asking what kinds of songs I thought might be good for him to play. I tried not to read too much into the question, telling myself that he was asking me because I’d been helping out with the youth group longer and knew the girls well.

So I suggested my at-the-time favorite Christian artist (who remains a personal favorite of mine to this day), John Mark McMillan. I had just gotten his cd with the song “How He Loves,” which was before David Crowder Band had covered it and it was hitting airwaves in a major way. Meaning, that not too many were familiar with it, so I made a copy of it and the next week at church, I offered it to him, as a way to help him learn the songs.

He declined and told me he wasn’t into burning music.

I know he did it in a gracious way, but at the time, it caught me off guard and felt like a complete rejection. So do you know what I replied? “Oh, well, if you have morals or something…”

Oh my.

It still makes me cringe thinking about it to this day and still makes my husband laugh and laugh. (Although at the time he was certain I couldn't stand him, which of course was the furthest thing from the truth.)

He ended up taking the cd (because, like I said, he’s a gracious guy) and singing the song at the bonfire. But it was just another proof that God was totally at work helping me stick to my no-flirting vow. Almost too much, it might seem!

Click here to read the next part in Our Love Story.

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Our Love Story: The Prelude

Last week, my husband and I celebrated three years of marriage, which on the one hand seems like hardly anything at all but also like forever. It is a good thing and one that still takes me by awe some days when I realize how good we have it.

In celebration, I thought it’d be fun to take a couple of trips down memory lane about the early stages of our relationship.

In case you’ve missed it, I have written a few posts here and there on the subject, most notably documenting the first time we met (which was about as unromantic as it could get) and a lesson I learned early on in our relationship when we were grocery shopping together as well as how I knew my husband was “the one.”

So, where to begin? Well, at the beginning, I suppose…




Before my husband and I even met, I was in a season of intentionally praying for a husband after my latest failed relationship had left me broken hearted and wounded. One of the things I determined during that time was that in my next relationship, I would not try to force anything, whether it was getting someone to notice me or try to meet him or anything. I had done that in the past and every time it had ended miserably.

I had to trust that God knew who was better for me than I did. I had dated different “Christian” guys who seemed great on the outside but on the inside, they didn’t stand up to the test of how a godly man ought to act. Looking back on my past record, it was clear that I had no idea what kind of guy was right for me. I could look at his resume and say, “Well he sounds like a great Christian guy!” but then still be disappointed and hurt in the end.

So, I decided to take an incredibly hands-off approach to dating, which may or may not be the right decision for everyone. In a book I can heartily recommend, Get Married, Candace Watters talks about getting yourself noticed by a man you’re interested in and how it can be done in a godly manner without overstepping a man's role as the one doing the pursuing. It’s kind of that whole Ruth-and-Boaz dance where Ruth took the reins to let Boaz know she was interested in him—and that can be completely biblical. But for me, at that time, it was not. The Holy Spirit was telling me to step back and let him do the leading this time.

Admittedly, that proved hard to live out upon meeting my someday-husband.

From the first time I saw him (toting a bucket filled with water balloons at a youth-group event), I was attracted to him. I remember, I had picked up one of the youth group girls to take her to the event and when we drove in and I saw him standing there, I blatantly checked him out. I caught myself immediately, totally embarrassed, because what kind of role model is that?!

All that to say, from day one, this guy had caught my eye.

Click here to read the next part in Our Love Story.

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Your Questions Answered: How I Knew My Husband Was "The One"

QUESTION: Well, I do have a question and I hope it's not too personal. What confirmation did you receive that your husband was the one God had for you?

one of our engagement photos by fyrefly photography

I don’t think this is too personal at all, and in fact I think this is one of my favorite questions I’ve received yet! Probably mostly because I love sharing how God has directed decisions and circumstances in my life, as well as a good chance to brag on my husband, but also because I appreciate the chance to dispel any—for lack of a better word—misconceptions that I think can sometimes crop up when we start talking about finding “the one.”

When I was single, I really hoped that God would make it especially clear to me who I should marry. I had heard of people who had dreams that directed them to date a certain person to marry. I don’t doubt that God does work in those miraculous sorts of ways, but that was not the case for me. Instead, it was a pretty ordinary chain of events where I got to see more and more of my husband’s heart and trust that it was rooted in the Lord. And through those glimpses, I knew that I could trust him with my own heart.

If you’ve read the back story on what was going on in my life around the time that I first met my now-husband (here ya go, if you need to catch up), you know that at this time, I had just finished reading a very insightful and encouraging book from a biblical perspective called Get Married by Candice Watters and was passionately praying that the Lord would prepare me for my husband and would bring us together.

I’ll start off by saying that I think this aspect—prayer and preparing of the heart—is probably one of the first elements of recognizing that my husband was right for me. During the season of singleness leading up to meeting him, I was especially learning about the role of a Christian wife and actively trying to live out the virtues set forth in by the wife in Proverbs 31. It’s what Watters calls “live like you’re going to be married,” despite what circumstances (ie, singleness) might otherwise suggest. This active pursuit really went a long way in helping me see what mattered in a man—not his looks, job, salary, or (ahem) age. (Didjaknow? My husband is four years younger than me!) I realized that what really mattered was his heart for the Lord, and from that single facet, all else would fall into place.

I know people who make all sorts of list and qualifications to choose a husband. But I think there only has to be one: That he loves the Lord more than I do. When my husband and I were dating, that was the quality that stuck out to me so much. I couldn’t believe how much he read his Bible and how well he knew it. He loved the Word! Talking about God was one of the main topics of conversation from when we first started dating and it was that thread that drew us together.

Later as we dated, we had to learn how to deal with conflict. I remember one argument that we had very vividly. I was exasperated because I couldn’t get him to change his mind on a subject that I felt very strongly about. Then I realized that it’s not my job to make him change his mind, the only one who can do that is the Holy Spirit. So I stopped trying and instead started praying and decided to trust the Holy Spirit to speak to him. About an hour later, I got a phone call from him, with a softer heart, and we were able to smooth out the conversation. That interchange was a breakthrough in our relationship because it proved one thing: I could trust him to listen to the Holy Spirit. I knew that if he was obedient to God above all else, then I had nothing else to worry about. I could trust my heart to one who listened to and heeded the Lord!

I should also add that I don't necessarily believe there is only "one" person out there for anyone (though some are definitely better than others!). That being said, I can't imagine anyone better suited for me than my husband. Every day I am in more and more awe over this fact when I think about how kind and gentle and comforting my husband is with me. He is not perfect, but he is perfect for me.

What Other Questions Do You Have For Me?
Recently, I invited you to ask me any questions you might have that I could answer in upcoming posts, whether it's follow-up regarding anything I've written about in the past, curiosities regarding any of my personal experiences, or your general blogging questions.

In the following weeks I will continue to respond to your questions, so please feel free to ask any that come to mind in the comments below or send me an email. I have some questions in the queue regarding my thoughts on faith, cooking advice, and how my baking soda shampoo is doing, so those and more to come!

(If you missed last week's Q&A, it was in regards to my decorating plans for the holidays.)   

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How My Husband and I Met Two Years Ago Today

It was two years ago today--the last Sunday in June--that I first saw him, the man who would, just over a year later, become my husband.

Sunday night was when our church youth group met, and I was one of the adult volunteers. In the spirit of summer and a season of R&R, we were forgoing formal times of teaching for fun activities; tonight's was a capture-the-flag water-balloon-fight. Talk about laying the stage for romance.

I had picked up one of the girls in my group and remember pulling into the church parking lot and spying this guy I'd never seen before, hauling a big bucket filled with water balloons. I caught myself staring at him and had to snap back to attention, lest I model poor behavior for the sweet sixteen year old in my passenger seat!

The youth group pastor (who also officiated our wedding the following summer) divided the kids and volunteers into two teams; as it turned out, the cute new guy and I were on opposing teams. Having no desire to get hammered with water balloons, I decided to stay back and guard the flag. Of course, it would be my luck that he would be the one to come and snatch our flag. I threw a few lame attempts to stop him, but whether you blame it on my bad aim or his debilitating good looks, it was inevitable, and he got away with the flag.

It was at this point when one of the girls on my team ripped the flag away from her little sister, whom cute-new-guy had passed the flag to. So here I was in a dilemma; cute-new-guy and the little sister are looking at me to chastise the older sister for breaking the rules. I've never been one for confrontation and I barely know anything about disciplining someone, even when it's only fair and out of love. I'd been acting as a leader for the youth group for about two years at this point, and so I saw these girls as little sisters. I halfheartedly told the older sister she needed to give the flag back.

I immediately knew I had not handled that situation appropriately at all. When the game wrapped up (only moments later), I went and talked to the older sister and had her apologize to her little sister. Then it was time for me to apologize. To him. This was our first meeting. I went up to him, introduced myself, and told him I was sorry for the flimsy way I handled the interaction earlier. He gracefully accepted and I walked away, tail between my legs but knowing the apology was necessary.

Afterward, some of the other volunteers and I went up to the Sonic up the street to hang out after all the kids had been picked up and gone home. The youth pastor came and who did he bring with him but the new guy. As luck would turn out, one empty seat was right across from me, the other was catty-corner to me. I was well aware of this great, providential positioning. And cute-new-guy, my future husband, chose the seat catty-corner to me, where we got to begin to mend our ill-started friendship over french fries and milk shakes.

There was next to no flirting that night, nor for many nights afterward. It was a month later that he asked me out on our first date (actually a double date with our youth pastor and his wife). But each year since, we've made it a point to go back to Sonic and memorialize that fateful meeting of water balloons, my first apology, and milkshakes at sunset.

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{ photo by brandon christopher warren  }

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Six months of marriage: One more answered prayer

one of our wedding photos by fyrefly photography

Today, Michael and I celebrate six months of being married.

Though it admittedly isn’t all that long in the grand scheme of things, it is pretty incredible to look back and see how far we’ve come: A year and a half ago, I was single and living in Cincinnati. At the time, there were two prayers on my heart: 1. To meet the godly man I would marry, and 2. Find a job in Grand Rapids and start the next chapter of my life.

I had only been praying adamantly and intentionally about both of those for a few months when I penned this journal entry titled, "things are happening… i can see it," that reflects on God working in these two prayers:

July 15, 2008

All I can say is that I feel like I’m at a point where I’m really able to watch God work. It used to be that God would do stuff without me realizing it and I wasn’t aware that the steps I was taking would lead here or there. But now, I feel like I’m finally able to see it and perceive in, in real, live time.

It kind of reminds me of the part in Fantasia where the magic just starts to kick in, and it’s happening little by little. But after awhile it swells into this huge symphony of magic coming together. Right now, it’s that beginning. Where the buckets are teetering and brooms are waking up and they’re starting that little dance, just now stirring. And to think i’m able to watch it as it happens to me and those around me. It’s so awesome.

“If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it…”

It’s interesting to note that when I wrote that, I had no word about a job in Grand Rapids and no men on the horizon. I knew Michael, but was convinced he had no interest in me so I had no expectation that anything would happen there at all.

Yet, there was a feeling in my bones that God was at work with these prayers. What do you know? Within weeks, I had my first date with Michael and a job offer in a city with one of the country's most depressed employment rates. A year later,  I was already a married woman and planning my next cross-country move. Miracles wrought, revealing that God can make the impossible possible, the loftiest of prayers come true, faster than we ever anticipated.

It has been so amazing to look back and see how God laid those prayers so heavily on my heart and then--why am I surprised?--answered them in such an incredible and powerful manner. A year and a half later, I'm still in awe and ever-so thankful, as both of them have indelibly changed my life and my heart!

Happy anniversary, Michael. I love you!

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Why we moved to Atlanta--and left a well-paying job, in this economy

photo by chany14

I thought I’d share a little bit about the decision-making that went into our decision to move to Atlanta as newlyweds.

As most of you know, my husband and I met and dated long-distance for the first 10 months of our courtship. My husband had long-intended to spend his summer in Grand Rapids with me, but when we got engaged and decided to get married over the summer, we had a decision to make: Stay in Michigan or move to Atlanta?

While some people encouraged us to consider a long-distance marriage (seriously), we knew that was out of the question. There were benefits and drawbacks to each option:

In Michigan, I had a well-paying, full-time job with good benefits. In this economy, that is not to be taken lightly. However, it would mean having to figure out an alternative for my husband finishing up college. Ultimately, our goal is that when we start our family, he will be the breadwinner so that I can stay home and raise our kids (which is the way both of us were raised and has been my heart’s desire for raising my own family). So it was very important that we not delay him finishing up his degree and getting a job, plus he is studying to be a teacher and the teaching market is pretty nonexistent in Michigan, so we guessed that eventually we’d have to move anyway for him to find a job.

Moving to Atlanta, though, was full of question marks. My husband would be able to finish up his last year in college, uninterrupted. He has a scholarship that covers his entire tuition, which we both consider a great perk because we want to keep our debt to a minimum--even if it is “good debt.” Georgia’s teaching market is more favorable than that in Michigan or Ohio. However, it would mean me leaving my job and us not knowing what we would do for income or how we would get by.

Once he moved to Grand Rapids, we spent the first month praying about this decision until we ultimately decided to make the decision in favor of our future rather than our current circumstances: We would move to Atlanta.

Now, at the time, as I was praying through it, I didn’t feel that we had to move to Atlanta. I really felt like God impressed upon me that both decisions were good decisions and either one would be okay. However, the Atlanta decision was a greater leap of faith while staying in Grand Rapids would mostly be made out of fear of the unknown. With that on my heart, we decided in favor of moving to Atlanta.

And I have to say it was a great decision. Time after time, God has awed me with his provision and blessing during this move, from a steady (albeit impermanent) income to enough wedding money to pay for our entire ($1500+) move down here, and then some. We continue to thank God for each day he has given us, our manna that provides us with our daily bread. Though we still don’t know what awaits us or how this will all work out, we continue to trust that he will be faithful to his Word and his name: Jehovah Jireh, God our Provider.

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