In my last post, I decided to share how my husband Will and I met. If you missed it and are interested, click here.
So to pick up where I left off, I was becoming rapidly discouraged at what the Christian online dating site had to offer. I can sometimes, occasionally, every once in awhile, be a little dramatic, so I was starting to think that I should probably just resign myself to being single for at least the next few years because, obviously, the right Christian man and I were not on a romantic path of collision. Yet, in my head and even in my frustrated heart, I knew God had a plan for me and that I needed to trust Him to bring it about. Yes, okay, clearly I’m not always so good at that, but I was (and am) trying.
A couple of days following my waning interest in the site (or more accurately, the men I had encountered on the site), a message popped through on my profile from a youth pastor a few hours north of where I lived.
I skimmed his profile and saw that he was a handsome guy, had a variety of interests, and most importantly, that we were both Christians. Well, of course, you may be thinking, it is a Christian site after all. Well, unfortunately, as is often the case, one can state that they are a Christian but that doesn’t mean that Jesus is the most important part of his/her life. And one thing I knew was that the man I would marry had to have Christ as his priority. Granted, you can only tell so much by a person’s profile, but it appeared to me that this guy was the real deal in that regard. I decided to hold on to his message and respond later.
In a conversation later that day, I mentioned him to my mom, who I am very close to and who subsequently was following along with my adventure in online dating. After telling her a little bit about the youth pastor, she strongly encouraged me to respond to his message. And because I wanted to as well, I did.
We were both at the end of our free trials with this site, and because the site doesn’t easily allow the exchange of email addresses (because that would diminish the need for the message feature on the site), we had to write out our emails. You know, so and so “at hotmail dot com”. It would appear that when I gave him my email address, I accidentally left off the last letter before writing out “at”. Oops.
This was my first experience with how persistent Will can be. Yes, of course, Will was that youth pastor, and rather than assume I was blowing him off when the email didn’t work, he managed to figure out the letter I had left off. I am so glad that he did! (He did admit to me later that he was worried I had done it on purpose.)
Thus began our courtship, in the form of emails back and forth daily, sometimes two or three times a day (I still have those emails, now in printed form, and cherish them). The emails covered ground such as likes and dislikes in music, food, movies, and books. We discussed theology, our thoughts on the roles of men and women, modern day dating, and one of the most dangerous topics…college basketball. All bets were almost off when I discovered that the potential love of my life was a State fan. Divine intervention is the only explanation I have for why this UNC girl continued the correspondence. Just kidding. State isn’t really a problem for me. It would have been discovering that he was a Duke fan that would have ended the budding relationship.
After many, many emails, we then exchanged phone numbers. We began talking for sometimes hours at a time, and it wasn’t long before I felt like I had known him for years. There was an easiness to our conversations and I was excited to learn how much we had in common. Yet the differences were wonderful too, because they added that extra spice that enhanced the flavor of our developing romance (like our first heated debate in which we discussed pre-tribulation vs. post-tribulation perspectives- now doesn’t that sound romantic? Actually, despite his love of discussing theology, politics and history, I came to discover during those phone calls that Will has quite a sweet heart and is most definitely a natural-born romantic. I also began to discover that side of him as our relationship developed, because the emails eventually became love letters.
We arranged to meet for the first time on Martin Luther King, Jr day since we were both off of school and work. Will planned to drive to my parents’ home a few hours away since I had driven home from grad school for the long weekend. This also served as a safety measure, given that we had met on the internet and all. Poor guy. Meeting my parents and me all on the same day.
This was my first experience with the part of my husband’s genetic code that is programmed to perpetual tardiness. He had talked with a close friend of his who had spent a couple of summers in my area and had gotten driving directions from him. This proved to be a mistake, as his friend’s route took him out of his way and added on more time than I care to share to his drive. Even better, my sweetheart had thought ahead by bringing two cell phones, but somehow, and I am not making this up, his cell phone died and the one he borrowed from his cousin also died. In addition, the charger he had for his phone would not charge his phone- we still don’t know the reason for that because it had always worked before. He couldn’t stop to call me because even though he had my number, it was of course, programmed into his phone. Which, as I stated, was dead. Fun times.
Meanwhile, I am wondering where on earth my date is and all sorts of scenarios are running through my head. Finally, I see a car pull up the driveway. I peeked out the window as he got out of his car and walked towards the door. He looked normal…and even looked like the picture on his profile. Good to know. And as I answered the door, the amazing blue of his eyes and his friendly smile went a long way in easing my irritation and anxiety over his late arrival. Once I heard what had happened, I teasingly chastised him for not getting directions from me and after he met my parents and met their approval, we were on our way.
To be continued…
Dancing in the Mundane 