the end...of 2006

i'm sure the super classy stupid boy would have talked to me in person if he lived around here, but he didn't. (actually, i'm not so sure he would have...but anyway...) the boy had been visiting the church at christmas, too, while he was home on leave. the friend request came in august, so i guess i at least left a lasting impression.

well, you know how the internet is - you have to be safe and people are quite creepy, so you shouldn't accept friend requests (is that what they were called on myspace? i can't even remember) unless you know the person. or maybe you can if their brother is one of your new friends from church that you met through your cousin.

it doesn't hurt if the person is wearing camouflage AND has a guitar in their profile picture, either. (the guitar wasn't his. i asked. in his defense, he wasn't posed with it - it was in the background. ha.)

yes, this is still about God, but He works in mysterious ways.

so this boy decides to come home over labor day weekend to see his cousin before he went away to the navy. and the boy met me at...sigh. i'm wincing. (some of you already know why.) pinch penny pub! super classy, again. and so the girl who didn't care much about God met a boy who didn't either.

but the stupid boy and the dense girl got along well. actually, i. was. smitten. like in the most improbable, totally silly way.

and for about a month, fun and happy phone calls were made across the country, over the pacific ocean, there and back again. and while i let my whole heart get wrapped up in pursuing this boy, i wasn't pursuing God. but here's the fun part - He (capital H) was pursuing me.

i was plenty old enough to know better than to get so caught up in a person in such a short time, but i didn't pay that any mind. i also didn't give much thought to God - at all. until one night, the boy broke up with me.

i was pretty sad. like in a really pitiful, awful, i-can't-believe-she-liked-him-that-much-and-they-only-saw-each-other-twice kind of way. but there was a much bigger reason for the pitiful depth of love i fell into.

i was driving to work and for some reason i had scanned the stations and come across a christian one. as if it were by chance. broken and low, i hadn't gone looking for God. i looked for anything else but God.

and driving, alone, feeling abnormally devastated, i heard a song. call it cheesy, but there it was, a song about how the past didn't matter and how God loved me anyway. and it occurred to me what i'd done. i'd messed up over and over and over again. i finally realized i actually needed God. (that's the thing about growing up in church - it's hard to see that you NEED to be saved sometimes.)

i was just almost at the four-way stop in desoto. it was october. i needed to be saved, and i was. God came and took my heart for His own. and i still mess up every day, and the story isn't finished yet.

the other story isn't finished either. about a month later, the boy and i were talking again. by january of 2007, just four months after i'd met him, i found myself tearfully praying that he would be safe during his deployment to iraq. i was driving. i suppose God waits until i am driving to speak because that's the only time i shut up long enough to listen. i had just crossed the bridge on the black top on the way to my parents' house. i knew the boy would be ok in iraq because i suddenly knew i was going to marry him.

there's a lot of 'story' between then and now, but that's the boy's story to tell. he says he will maybe do a guest blog on his christmas break, so be watching for that. (sorry to start the story so far from then, but i couldn't tell MY story without telling some of his. such is marriage.)

here are some of the lyrics to the song i heard that october day in desoto. i'm sure some of you have heard it before:

Its been a bad day, you've been looking back And all you can see is everything you wish you could take back All your mistakes, a world of regrets All of those moments you would rather forget I know it's hard to believe Let me refresh your memory

Yesterday is history And history is miles away So leave it all behind you Let it always remind you of the day The day that love made history

You know you can't stay right where you fell The hardest part is forgiving yourself But let's take a walk into today And don't let your past get in the way