A Different Kind of Birth Story

Today is my husband's birthday.  I don't know his birth story, so I can't comment on that, but we got together with friend's on the weekend and talked about how we all met and it brought it all back for me.....I will tell our relationship's birth story instead!

I had noticed him and his brother always coming to church and skipping out as soon as the service was over.  I was a young single girl and there was no college and career group at the church, so I decided I had better start one!  Here were two potential guys (I assumed single as I saw no girls with them) and they would make a lovely addition to the group!  But why were they always taking off!?  I had to find out, so I approached them one Sunday and said to them, "You know, you are never going to meet anyone if you keep taking off each Sunday!"  I'm sure they were impressed with me.  Ha.  The younger brother was very charming and extremely fashionable, but turns out, engaged.  Oh well.  The older taller brother was quiet and did not looked impressed with me at all.  But the ice was broken and from then on, we did get them connected into the group, including the new wife who arrived shortly on the scene.

Meanwhile, I was traveling, going to school, working overseas.  It just never seemed I was around long enough to develop any long term relationship with anyone and no one was jumping out at me anyway.  RM, i.e., husband-to-be, was now connected into a good group of guys at the church and even started living with 4 of them in a house owned by other friends in the church.  I didn't think much of him at the time.  He was not what I was looking for at all.  In my shallow pathetic mind, I think I was looking for someone just like me, outgoing, friendly, someone who could work a crowd.  That was not RM at all.  So I didn't even consider him for a second.

Then, and he hates this part of the story, but it did help pique my interest in him, I heard he was in a relationship with someone, but had quickly broken it off and this girl was devastated.  I was overseas at the time and heard this news all the way across the country.  Devastated.  Hmmm...... he must be quite something if she was devastated!  Awful, I know.  I started to wonder about him just slightly.

Then, I came home that Christmas, but again, was only home for a very short time and he came right up to me, very chatty and he is not a chatty guy.  He seemed disappointed that I wouldn't be around.  I went back to Colombia that January, but still didn't think much more about him.

Meanwhile back in Colombia, I had friends that were quite determined to see that I get in a relationship.  They always asked me what kind of guy I wanted.  I would describe someone that was funny and charming, again, I think I was describing someone that was just a male version of me.  I was so clueless.  I was praying for a husband all the time now and I know my parents were, too.  I'm so glad because if they hadn't been praying and I had married a male version of me, we would have been split up by now.  I had so many people ready to set me up with guys they knew that summer, I figured I would be dating a different guy each week!  (I didn't know anything about courtship at the time!)

Back in Canada, RM was making a plan.  He knew when I was going to arrive back in Canada and was going to ask me out.  His roommates supposedly told him, "You'll be a hero if it works out."  They said this because they had asked me out for dinners on other occasions, but they were NOTHING like I was looking for!  Sorry, but it's true!  They were nice guys, but none of them struck me at all as strong men.  They figured I wouldn't be interested in him either.  But he wasn't like them... at all.

The first Sunday back, I went to church and saw him, but didn't talk to him.  Actually, I saw his car.  It was a Porsche.  Now, I'm not that shallow to think, "Ooooh!  A sports car!  I must date him!"  No, it was more like, "Hmmm... a Porsche, what kind of guy is he that has enough confidence to drive one of those.....?"  It made me start to wonder who he was.

That week, I was praying for a husband (seriously, I remember doing that!) and reading my Bible.  I came across the verse in Isaiah, that says, "The Lord longs to be gracious to you."  I felt like God was speaking to me, encouraging me to just trust Him.  I underlined the verse in my Bible in green pen and wrote the date.  Then, I got the call just 3 days later that would change my life.

"Would you like to go sailing with me on Friday night?"

"Sure!"

I was so sure he was making it up.  Where would he get a sailboat?  Perhaps he would rent one.  But sure enough, he picked me up that night, in the Porsche, and took me to a sailboat.... his sailboat.  It couldn't have been a more beautiful night, warm and humid.  He had seriously thought of everything.  He even brought another couple along to sail the boat so that he and I could just talk all night.  He had packed a bottle of wine, containers of cheese and crackers.... everything.  I was completely swept off my feet.  We sailed what seemed like to the middle of Lake Ontario where we watched fireworks.  Fireworks were going off in my heart, too!  I told them on Saturday night if he had proposed that night I probably would have said yes!

I came back and told my mom, "If I never have another date, I have to say that was the best first date of my life!"

Within days, he called again and then again.... we were together for the rest of the summer.  I had to leave in August to go back and teach for another school year, but the long distance was a good thing as it forced us to communicate through letters and helped us to get to know one another on a whole other level.

I nearly missed out on him though because I was still quite confused by the expectations I had unknowingly in my head about the type of guy I wanted.  That will be a story for tomorrow......