Monday, August 18, 2014

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.
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28 comments:

  1. This story is like a Nicholas Sparks book! It's so sweet and I'm so glad that you ended up together, because you were clearly meant to. Stories like that just melt my heart :)

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    1. Aw thank you! I tell Drew a lot that our story would be a box office hit. He thinks I'm so weird haha. I love our story and I'm so glad we ended up together!

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  2. oh my goodness.
    y'alls story is just beautiful!!! I love, love, love it!
    I've held on to some hope of "getting back together with an ex" but I now realize how unhealthy our relationship was/is. sometimes it works, sometimes it isn't meant to - but y'alls story is so beautiful!
    thank you for sharing!

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    1. Thank you so much! I really love our story. I genuinely wasn't looking. The week before I had done a study with some friends on Ruth waiting for Boaz, and I pretty much told God, "ok, you win, if you ever want Drew and I to talk again, I'll leave it between the two of you. I'll stop waiting." It was just a whole series of crazy Jesus interventions. The best part of life with Christ is...even if we don't find love here, we are already living out the greatest love story ever told. So I think your story right now is pretty freaking beautiful too!

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  3. also I don't think I realized you were an atheist. what a beautiful redemption story that is!

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    1. I don't really like to talk about it much, but yeah, I was very much against the entire concept of a God. I didn't really know what I thought but I definitely was anti-Christianity. The walls started to come down at a Laura Story concert about a month before I got saved...a concert I got tricked into going to haha.

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  4. AH! This is such a beautiful story. It has so many twists! Love it! I didn't know you were like super anti-God...you definitely have to share your testimony in depth sometime.

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    1. Thanks girl! I've kind of felt like my full testimony is something to be shared more in one on one conversations as opposed to broadcast to the world. I don't mind discussing it in person but it definitely contains a lot of things I'm just not sure I'm supposed to write on, at least at this point in time. But it really did lead me to an amazing place in life, and I'm very thankful for it, messy as it was!

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  5. oh my gosh. i LOVE this. i love the swirlyness of the story, how there were so many little tiny details and God's timing that led you two together and apart and together and apart and together.you guys have one of the most beautiful little love stories ever. <3

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    1. Thank you! It was seriously so many tiny details that led us back to where we are now. I am biased but I definitely think we have one pretty great love story!

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  6. this story is so wonderful! i love it....the way god orchestrated everything just perfectly to bring the two of you together. the way you recognize that...it's so precious! i also love the line "i loved it because it was a book." haha! i am totally with you :)

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    1. He orchestrated so many things. It's ridiculous. And for real, I will read almost anything. I can't get enough. I love it.

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  7. What a beautiful story!!! :)

    http://neatly-packaged.com/

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  8. What a beautiful story!!!! I love love - so sweet!

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  9. I love your story!! thanks for sharing! I think I teared up a little!

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    1. I tear up every time I think about it! Thank you :)

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  10. Awww What a sweet story! I love stuff like this!! Thanks so much for sharing!! :)

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  11. First off, this had me in tears! This story is so sweet and full of Jesus and I LOVE that! Second, I got married on January 5, 2013 so we are almost exactly a year apart! Third, thank you for sharing this friend! I love reading love stories! I'll have to share mine soon!

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    1. I always tear up when I think about it!! And no way--almost anniversary twins!! Winter weddings are underrated in my opinion! Cannot wait to read yours!!

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  12. I love hearing love stories and this one doesn't disappoint! So sweet. Love how all of those "Ifs" came together!

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    1. Aw thank you! A million ifs factored in, and luckily, they all lined up and we finally became husband and wife!

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  13. That is such a sweet story. High school sweethearts who end up together are awesome.

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  14. Love that you both met Jesus during your time apart.

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  15. THIS STORY!! I was a huge atheist before meeting my husband, and up until about a year of dating him. God sure works in mysterious ways!!!

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