As we drove home from my sister's on Thanksgiving night, I was a little concerned that everyone would fall asleep, especially the four year old, then wake up as soon as we got home, find out they were hungry (as it was dinner time and they'd eaten a big lunch meal, but kids tend to eat all day!), and then be up all night. Then I remembered I had a bag of chips in the van, so I quickly told everyone to pass them to the little people so they could have something small in their stomachs, then, when they fell asleep we would be able to transfer them to their beds and not worry about them waking up at 2 am looking for dinner. It seemed like a great plan. Who doesn't love chips? My four year old thinks they are the greatest thing to snack on and because we don't eat them except at a birthday party or something like that, I was sure he would gobble up the whole bag! Sure enough, he found out chips were being unpacked and couldn't wait to get them, but then suddenly he stopped. He was listening to me lay out my plan to RM, or so I found out. "I don't want any," he quickly said. "What? Why don't you want any chips?!" I was dumbfounded. "I'm not going to sleep." He was on to me. Again, I found myself laughing - how does he do that????? I was speaking quietly to my husband, explaining my get-his-stomach-full plan and he had heard the whole thing. There was no way he was falling for that, so in the name of strong will, he passed on the chips. I couldn't believe it. Sure enough, two seconds later he was asleep. And sure enough, when we got home, he woke up, empty stomach, hungry and was up until 10 pm. His plan had worked. Arghhhh!! I've got to start speaking in sign language.
The Stephanie Saga continues....
Chapter 7 - A Little Help from Her Friends
Well, she didn't exactly come right out and ask us to find her a husband, but we sure did talk a lot about it as a couple with her. What she was looking for was help. We had heard dating described something like this, a series of small divorces each time the boyfriend doesn't work out. Isn't that true? Everytime you date someone, you can't help but give a piece of your heart away. Then, when and if you finally do find someone to marry, that person never gets a complete person emotionally, but a somewhat incomplete person whose heart has gone to others and once those pieces of the heart are gone, you cannot get them back. They will forever be with those other people. Stephanie agreed and was tired of that.
People will tell you that it is necessary to find out who you are meant to be with if you just "try out" a whole bunch of different relationships. I beg to differ. I was able to determine if my husband was the right one by actually thinking about my closest friendships with my girlfriends. That may sound strange, as I never dated girls obviously (heaven forbid!) but consider this. I was so confused at first if RM was "the one" for me, then suddenly, it occurred to me to reflect...who am I best friends in the world with? As I looked back over the years, I suddenly saw a pattern, a very funny pattern - all my closest girlfriends that I'd ever known (usually roommates) were all female versions of him! It was true! And because they had all been roommates of mine, we'd all lived together around the clock and had seen each other at our absolute worst and our absolute best. I had even joked with a few of them that I wished I could have married them as they were the only ones who understood me! I suddenly realized in a split second, he was the perfect one for me as he was just like my best female friends, but, yay, a male! I would be marrying my newest best friend! It didn't take dating tons of guys to figure that out. This way, I was able to know beyond a shadow of a doubt he was the one for me. This, along with my parents' involvement, God's Word and much prayer, saved me much heartache and I was able to go into marriage as a whole person (minus a couple stupid relationships in highschool!)
Stephanie knew herself. She knew she didn't want to date anymore. It had already confused her enough. She'd been raised on Disney, like most young girls, and had always dreamed of a princess-type relationship, or perhaps a knight on a white horse coming to scoop her up....she was starting to realize she didn't trust herself to make a wise choice, so we told her, we'd try to help and that's when we started to pray really intently that God would bring someone along our path that we could introduce to her. We would help "screen" this potential future husband. This is what is considered "courtship" nowadays. It didn't mean that we would pick someone that she wasn't interested in or attracted to, we were just agreeing to help her and be alongside in the process. We also weren't by-passing her parents' role at all. They were still very much involved, though they still thought dating was the best way to go. Well, it turned out it didn't take long....
When she was my husband's assistant, we took her everywhere we went, especially when we did anything related to the book business. If we went to a homeschool conference she was there, setting up, taking down, standing behind the table. We sold books, yes, but we literally had Stephanie on "display", too! She was super friendly, outgoing, and keenly met everyone who came to our table. Meanwhile, we were spying out any potential guys that would walk by. There were very few single guys at these conferences unless they were nursing babies as these conferences were for parents who homeschooled! However, there was one....
No comments:
Post a Comment