it's a love story...

Seven years ago yesterday, on August 17, 2007, I started my junior year of high school at a brand new school. I was the shyest I had ever been, after spending the first two years of high school barely speaking to anyone and primarily eating lunch with a book in the library. Don't feel bad for me...I really preferred it that way. I was happy to be my introverted self with my favorite books.

Friends from said new school. The other main character in this story is somewhere in here...

However, I wasn't sure how to arrange that at my new school. It seemed like maybe I should take the opportunity to make friends, but I honestly didn't know how to do that. I was always a very serious person. Most high school kids aren't that serious. I was more well read than most others, and have always been able to recall any information I've read on a given subject without warning. My parents call me Britannica, as in the encyclopedia, but most of my peers thought it was weird.
Starting this new school was terrifying. I didn't much like change, and it wasn't like it had been really planned that far out. We had a lake house a few towns over from our farm, and we spent lots of weekends at the lake. One day towards the end of sophomore year, we went to the lake house for the weekend, and never left. It was all quite overwhelming.
That first day though...if I hadn't moved to the lake suddenly, if I hadn't decided to sit with a girl I had met a few weeks before school and her friends, if I hadn't had a love of foreign languages...
On that first day of junior year in Spanish class, a very tall boy came into the room rough housing with a few other boys. One of them pushed him as he neared my seat, and he fell on my desk. Being my shy 16 year old self, I didn't really know what to do. So I said "Oh, I'm sorry." And then felt awkward for apologizing when I wasn't even the one who did anything. I don't remember what his response was. All I remember was being red for about ten minutes with embarrassment for having drawn attention to myself.
That boy and I had a few more classes together, including English. I was, and still am, the biggest English nerd I know, so I hardly focused on anything besides what we were reading in class, but this boy who had fallen on my desk and turned out to be friends with that girl I sat with at lunch so he sat at our table too, was seated beside me in this English class and would occasionally strike up conversation with me.
One of the books we read that year was Beowulf. Most of the guys in class liked it because of the gore. I liked it because...well because it was a book. This was the same year the movie came out, and our teacher told us we would get extra credit for going to the movie. The boy who fell on my desk suggested we go together. I said okay. He picked me up in his car and paid for my ticket.
I didn't realize it was a date. I hadn't really been on those before.

Junior prom...when I turned the boy down. Fun fact, the girl in the center in the blue patterned dress is also married to her high school sweetheart now. She said yes to his prom invite this year.

In fact, I didn't know it was a date for a year. He asked me to junior prom and I said no, and ended up going with someone else. Then, senior year, we started dating...slowly. One day he asked me what had gone wrong on our first date junior year. And I had no idea what he was talking about.

After a long day on the lake senior year

We dated most of senior year. We broke up to go to college. Spring break of our freshman year of college we slowly started to get back together. We broke up the following May. And we didn't speak at all for nearly two years. And I was heartbroken for a long time, even though the breakup was really my fault.

Christmas during sophomore year of college with my family and the boy.

During that first year, right before Christmas, that boy met Jesus. And immediately began to pray for his future wife. Six months later on June 16, 2012, I met Jesus.
Then, on March 24, of 2013, I got a message on Facebook from that boy. 
Have you figured out where this is going yet?
He told me he heard I became a Christian and was shocked. I had always been very vocal about my atheism and my hatred of the church and its exclusive condemning nature towards nonbelievers. But I met a few Christians that had changed my perspective, including my now mentor, who brought me to her church during one of the darkest seasons of my life. And that's where I met Jesus.
During this Facebook chat, he asked for my phone number. I had changed it in the summer of 2012 to remove myself from some really unhealthy friendships. I gave it to him, and we set up a phone call for 9:00 that night.
I was so nervous I almost threw up when the phone finally rang.
We talked for six hours that night. And I don't stay up past 10 hardly ever. But I couldn't hang up. Ten minutes in to that phone call, I knew. We were getting married this time.
In the very early weeks of April, the boy came up to our hometown where I was still living and took me on our {third} first date. It was the best date of my life. I came home, went upstairs to my parents' room, and sat on the bed with mom and told her, "I think I just went on my last first date." She said, "I know."
On April 24th, we made it official and told the world we were back together again. On September 24th, precisely six months later, he got on one knee with the most beautiful ring I'd ever seen.

On January 4, 2014, barely over three months later, we said I do.

If I hadn't changed schools, if he hadn't fallen on my desk, if we hadn't met Jesus...I wouldn't be a Mrs. I wouldn't be married to my best friend. I wouldn't be building a life with the boy who fell on my desk.
I am so, so grateful for that first day of school. It led us to here.