Setting the Stage 

It was summer of 2011. I was trying to regain my health back by visiting my doctor on a weekly basis, which meant collapsing into a sterilized recliner whilst being hooked up to an IV drip. I hadn’t planned to meet a love interest. I felt like my still puny health negated the possibility for budding love. Until my future husband ushered his gregarious presence into my life, which dispelled every preconceived notion I had concerning what necessitates the need for romantic love.

But before I ever saw him face to face, actions had to be set in place for me to even meet him. Which leads me to a statement I never thought I would have written a decade ago.

I met my future husband online.

One of my best friends suggested I try meeting someone on Christian Mingle in the somewhat near future. I shook my head, inwardly thinking I would wait to do something like that when I felt like my biological clock was really ticking. Now wasn’t the time. But then I received a message in my inbox one July night advertising the services on Christian Mingle. I felt a prompting to click, so click I did.

I quite honestly clicked out of curiosity. I mean, who is on these dating sites anyway? Were they just a bunch of loser guys? Nerds who were in love with their computers more than people? I tried to click to discover more, but in order to actually see the faces of these mystery individuals, I had to register.

Darn. That put me in a predicament. I definitely didn’t want to get to the point of registering… but I complied. That very night, I saw the face of the photo you see above this story.

The face that would be my future husband.

During the registration process, I uploaded the photo above of myself. I love how we were already matching with the black and red. Thankfully it was one of those cute, unplanned coincidences and not one of those overly matchy runway disasters like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake’s nearly head to toe denim fiasco. 

 

 

When I saw his face, I felt inwardly stirred to meet him. Somehow, something already seemed special about this one. We began corresponding, which then led to a message from him mentioning how he had met my dad at an auto repair shop, and also how he went to church with my brother at one point. 

I was scouring my brain for information that would fit this story. Who was this guy? I asked my mom, detailing the information he had given me.

She burst out with a hearty exclamation of, “He’s that guy! He’s that guy your dad met at the auto repair shop! The one who your dad wanted to fix you up with!”

He’s That Guy!

Oh, so now it all made sense. And this is where I get to rewind the story for you so it ca0eb0fa2f-2a43-49a5-be37-87239de748bb_zpssgtfenbl2n make sense in your noggins.

You see, in January of 2011, my dad met this blond headed gentleman at auto repair shop. My dad came home to me saying that this guy was just my type. He had his head screwed on straight, he had ambition, he loved God, and he was good looking. Only problem was, I was very sick at the time. Much sicker than I was in the summer of ‘11 because I had just started treatments.

I didn’t want any guy to have to be put through the gauntlet of seeing my body at a diminished state. That just wasn’t fair to him. It didn’t matter who the male pronoun was affixed to, it just wasn’t fair

I brushed off the comments when they would come. And come they did. My dad kept mentioning how he wished we could meet sometime. My mom was eventually sold on him from my dad’s pitch to the point where she was wanting to know which church he attended to track him down! Again, the comments would only settle at the far corners of my brain.

…..Until I heard of his mention again that summer. “What? This is the guy dad was trying to fix me up with?” 

You see on the other side of the computer screen, my fair haired mingle correspondence found out through a close friend that I was the sister of someone he went to church with, and the daughter of the man he met at an auto repair shop. These off handed comments from a friend is what compelled him to write in his message about his connection with my family.

It’s also how I was able to click the puzzle pieces together.

My mom’s enthusiasm was vitally present because this was the guy my parents were wanting me to meet for six months. I didn’t know of the match making connection until my mom’s announcement. Suddenly, those puzzle pieces were starting to become a very clear picture.

Out of all the people to be attracted to, I fell for the one my dad had already isolated as the guy he wanted me to meet without my prior knowledge before the cyber exchanges. How crazy is that?! Talk about providence. We eventually began talking on the phone for hours, I’m talking at least four hours! 

Credit to Kati Rosado Photography

Credit to Kati Rosado Photography

A New Season

Month by month, my body was revitalizing. At some point that summer, my body began to heal to the point where I felt more like a human and less like a wounded zombie. When I finally met him face to face at Barnes and Noble, my body had mended to the point where he would never have been able to presume an illness had touched my body.

Upon meeting in person, he suddenly became shy, looking down at the ground, and nervously fidgeting with his hair. Definitely a far cry from the unabashedly bold but caring guy I had talked to over the phone! He finally began to open up, and communication freely commenced as if we had known each other since we were babes.

Oh yeah, and in case you’re wondering when I told him my dad was trying to fix us up, I waited. When mid October came and we became official, I told him. I laid out the bizarre connection: how my dad kept inserting words about a wonderful guy at an auto shop that would fit perfectly with me, and how I didn’t know he was the aforementioned guy until my mom fit the pieces together after I read his message out loud.

Over the months and years, I had found that he carried every single attribute I had prayed for in a husband. All of those years as a teen and in my early twenties when I would jot down the characteristics I wanted in a husband were not futile. They were prayed over, and God delivered. Boy did he deliver! We’re now married best friends, partners in prayer, book buddies….The list could tick on with more descriptions of our companionship, but you get the point! I feel blessed to have a marriage like ours. 

Reminiscing

Reminiscing on the beginnings of romantic relationships with our significant other should never get old, whether it was a traditional experience (through friends, at college in a shared course, etc.) or in a whacky way…you can fill in the blanks with those experiences. Each is an inkblot in your own story. Share your experiences of when you first met your significant other. I would love to hear your story.