I have been meaning to write this post for almost a year I guess, but I wasn't sure where to start or even what to say. But, I am going to give it a whirl now.
So, last year in February, I had decided that I was done dating. I was just going to be single forever and I was going to be totally content with that. I decided that I had been hurt for the last time and that dating just was not worth the trouble. So, on February 16, I logged into the dating site I was on to delete the account and be done with it. However, when I logged in there was a very nice and long, well thought out note from a man named Roy. I could tell that he had really read through my profile and had really put some thought into what he wrote to me. I felt like I should at least be polite and write back to him because of that. I really thought that would be the end of it. However, he wrote back again and again and we started talking by text because we really had a lot in common and I was just drawn to him.
Two weeks later, after talking for hours by text... but never by phone, we decided to meet and he came to my town and we met at Starbucks.
....I need to pause here for a minute in this story to tell you this.... for years I had prayed for a man who would pursue me. Who would be the one to lead things.... also, you need to know that through my life I have always wanted to receive flowers at work. There is something so special about that. I had only had that done once or twice before and we had discussed that.... Now back to the story.
So, we met at Starbucks and we talked for a couple of hours. He was a really neat guy and again, we had so much in common. I was just completely drawn to him.
The next day, I was at a hearing for education downtown with my friend Beva and I got a text from one of the teachers I work with showing me a picture of an amazing bouquet of flowers that had been delivered to me at school with a poem. Roy had ordered them at the local florist before our meeting. (Again, meaning--we had never talked on the phone or met when he ordered these). I asked him later what he would have done if we did not click at Starbucks and he said that he would have sent them anyway, just with a different note because he knew how much I loved flowers.
After that, we talked every day and saw each other as often as possible--he lived an hour away and we work opposite shifts. As time went by, I realized that he had every quality that I had prayed for over the years. I had written two lists of things that I hoped for in a future husband during my ten years of being single and I am not kidding when I say he had all of them.
In March, he asked me to marry him and I said yes. People thought we were pretty crazy, but I felt at total peace about it which is also not really the norm. My friends had often told me during the times I was dating that I should give guys a little more time or try not to just look for reasons to break up, but usually I would break up with all of them pretty quickly for one reason or another.
We decided on getting married in June. Again, many people told us we were crazy for getting married so fast, but it was just right.
Well, we did not get much of a "honeymoon period". Roy's mom passed away just a couple weeks after our wedding and Roy really had a hard time with it. He then suffered some health problems that were really tough for both of us. It took the doctors several months to get things to a good place. We had two great weeks where everything was normal and then I had a really bad car accident with my kids in January.
We were heading to church camp, and hit a spot of ice out of nowhere. Our car flipped over three times and I fractured my back in 7 vertebrae and suffered a mild traumatic brain injury. My kids just had scratches and walked away.
This car accident totaled my car and I was in the hospital for a month. Roy had to make lots of decisions about my care and had to have a crazy schedule of being at the hospital with me and helping with my son and working. I have to say that he was my rock. Honestly, he put up with me being nasty to him at times when I was heavily medicated and frustrated. He put up with me being confused and scared. Seriously, I cannot imagine what I would have done if I did not have him.
People may think we were crazy for getting married when we did, but I feel--no I know that God led us together for a purpose. He knew that Roy was going to need me and then he knew that I was going to need Roy. Marriage is not all about romance and happily ever after. It is about God joining two people together as a team to lean on each other. I love this man with all of my heart--sometimes in a mushy lovey dovey way.... but also in a way that means I would go to the ends of the earth to help him and do anything in my power to keep him safe and healthy and happy. I believe he feels the same.
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