A thought crossed my mind today. Ya, that happens every once and a while! This thought is one of those that makes me lay back in my chair and go, “woooooow”.
What sort of thought would do that?
This April it will be 17years since I met my husband. I was 17 years old, when I met him. The “wow” comes in realizing that this year marks a milestone – I will have known my darling for longer than I lived prior to meeting him. My years with him will begin to be the majority of my life.
We met in April, began to, officially, date in June and were wed in October. Whirlwind of courtship, huh? The very night we met, I knew he was to be something special in my life. As a matter of fact, I told my roommate just that, after he’d gone home. She just said, “uh huh” and went back to sleep. I mean, it WAS 3am or so. I would not have guessed, on that night, that “special” would be 16 years of marriage and 8 children. But, I’m really glad that’s how it turned out.
On that night we met, my roommate and I thought he was going to mug us. It wasn’t, really, his fault that we thought that. We were two, young, silly “girls” walking home from the movie theater, very late at night. We only lived across the street, but had to cross a large parking lot to get there. We were…um… quite boisterous. I have no idea what we were talking about, but she hollered, “like THAT man, over there!” and pointed to the direction of someone walking on the other side of the parking lot. Well, “THAT man” began to walk towards us! We got scared and walked faster. If we could get to the gate into the apartment complex, before he caught up with us, we’d be “safe”. That was, strategically, impossible, though. He was closer to the gate than we were and on a direct course for interception. As he neared us, it became apparent that he knew who she was. She, however, was blind as a bat and had no idea who he was, until he was right on us. Turns out they knew each other from the Pizza place and she invited him over for a visit.
Visit we did. We outplayed my roommate at Scrabble, sending her off to bed around 1am. We continued chatting and enjoying each other’s company until 3am, or so. He lived in the complex, in the next section over, and promised to come visit again. I must tell you, here, his intentions were NOT honorable. He saw a cute, young thing that he thought was hot. I’m not sure what I thought, for us. He was adorable, incredibly funny and smelled nice. LOL
Life moved on, and so did I. Out of the roommate situation and into a live-in relationship with, my now, DH! Until God grabbed hold of my shirt collar and pleaded that I come back to living life with Him. DH didn’t really understand. He hadn’t been to church in ages and never really had a personal relationship with God. It caused him to stop and really examine himself, his life. I moved onto the couch, and was packing to move back in my with my former roommate. To him, I guess, that meant breaking up, though I had told him that’s NOT what I wanted, not what I was doing. Well, whatever his thinking was, it really caused some soul-searching and changes in HIM.
He picked me up from night school, late one night, but we didn’t go home. We drove in an awkward silence to White Rock Lake, in Dallas, TX. As we drove I could only think that he was going to make one more plea that I not move out and break up with me, if I did. These thoughts prevented me from even entertaining small talk. He was scheming, in his brain, and fretting and that kept him from entertaining small talk. I was near tears, so was he.
We arrived at “our spot” on the lake and got out to talk. I sat on the hood of his car, mouth agape, staring in pure shock as he knelt down on one knee and asked me to marry him. That was sooooo not what I was expecting! I was, truly, in shock. He was so adorable, so vulnerable. What do most girls, madly in love, say at this point? Ya, well, that’s not what I said!!! I said, “uuuuuuum. I’ll have to think about it.’
This is where you’re to feel so bad for him. Such a huge decision for him to realize that he was ready to settle down. So certain that getting married was my motivation for “threatening” to move out. Here he is, putting himself out on a line, asking me to spend the rest of our lives together. And I was going to “think about it”?!? It gets worse, ya’ll!!
I did make that poor guy wait – almost a WEEK before I gave him an answer. The fate of his future with me relied upon a 17 year old! (I was almost 18, like 3 weeks away from it, but still!) I asked everyone I knew what they thought I should do. Some said, “no way, you’re too young, wait a few years.” Others said, “only you can make that decision.” But, you could tell they thought it was a bad idea. I was lost and confused and, finally, turned to prayer. I asked God for one of the most unlikely things to happen to be the sign that I was to marry my DH. The next morning that very thing happened and I went home, that night, to tell him a very definite “yes!” We got the license on my birthday, made a trip to the JP six days later and had a formal wedding the following June. Shortly after we wed DH was baptised and began a new life, with God at the center.
He’s still adorable, funny and smells great (most days). He totally completes me. I couldn’t have asked God for a better spouse. It hasn’t always been easy, but we’ve weathered the storms and came out stronger because of them. I thank God, several times a day, for sending my DH to interrupt the path i was on and forged a new one with DH.
