I love my husband. He is amazing. That being said, it is a miracle that we
are even together right now. Truly
– only by God’s grace.
When Phil asked me out, I had not
been on a date in over four months (see my blog on “Dating & Waiting”). I was excited, but also confused as to
whether or not it was really a date.
After all, he asked me to go to a local HS basketball game (and it
wasn’t like he and I were really even friends). I was serving with the youth at our church and
he was a Youth Minister, so I honestly thought that maybe it was some sort of
ministry outreach or something… I just couldn’t be sure.
I wanted to look CUTE… so I packed
a change of clothes and headed to work (the game was right after work). My plan was to go shopping at lunch for some black
boots to match my outfit. I went to DSW
and tried on a pair of super-cute Jessica Simpson boots when all of the sudden
I felt a sharp prick in my heel. A nail
from the boots had lodged into my foot.
Ouch! (FYI – the store was so
gracious with me and really took care of me that day). Well, I left without the boots and headed to
the doctor for a tetanus shot!
That night, when Phil came to pick
me up, he had a sweet gift bag – Band-Aids, gauze, and a “Get Well Soon”
card. I was so nervous on the way to the
game that I couldn’t stop talking. I made EVERY rookie mistake you can make in
a date. During the car ride, I’d ask him
questions about himself and his family and then interrupt him because all I
could think about was what to say next. He
got lost on the way to the high school, and I made fun of him – to the extreme. During the game, I over-shared. I talked about my entire dating history, my
ex-boyfriends, my prior eating disorder, my sin struggles – everything that can
and should be off-limits first-date material was in my monologue (trust me – he
barely had a chance to speak!).
As Phil was dropping me off that
night, I felt that strong, sickening sense of “this guy is never going to call
me again…” And he didn’t. For a
week. An entire five days. I waited, and
he did not call. (It turns out he had
been praying hard about whether or not to see me again, but I didn’t know that
at the time.) I saw him at church that
Saturday night and avoided him. He
called me that very night and asked why I had run out of church so
quickly. We ended up talking for about
an hour on the phone and scheduled our next date. It was equally as awkward, as was the third. During Phil’s proposal (see “The Proposal”
blog), he read me a journal he had been keeping since we first met. In it, he discusses those first three dates
and his questions/prayers to God of “is this really the girl I am supposed to
date?”
Here’s why I share my story with
you… in the past, I would have tried to manipulate my dating situation – I
would have figured out an excuse to reach out to Phil when he wasn’t calling,
or would have done everything in my power to try and force my own agenda. But this time, I didn’t. After each of our dates, I went home and
prayed that if this was the man I was supposed to date, that God would show me
and show him. And I knew that if Phil
kept asking me out, it was entirely because he was led to do so by the Lord and
not because of anything that I had done. In fact, in my own power, I had done
everything wrong. Fortunately, after our
first three dates, everything went amazingly well. We fell in love, and I am so thankful to God
for my amazing husband!
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