For two weeks I had been Facebook messaging or Skyping a young man I had met through a mutual friend on Facebook. I had called my mom a couple of days before, and the worry and fear she felt for me talking to someone I had never met was evident in her voice. This guy could be misleading me to believe he was someone he was not, I believe was her biggest worry. To relieve some of these fears, I had messaged another mutual friend of mine and KJ's, who was a close family friend that my mom would trust and respect. She had yet to respond.
The familiar sound of Skype met my ears and I nervously accepted the call. KJ and I talked for what seemed like a long time before he nervously asked if I would like to 'court' him. Such relief. He told me how that he would like for this relationship to be about finding out if we wanted to get married. We would ask deep and essential questions to see if we felt like it would work. Most importantly, we would seek God's will above all else. Of course, I have no idea what all he said. I was too nervous to hear everything, but I know that was the essence of what he said.
A day or two later, the mutual friend responded to my message by telling me what a great young man he was, and not only that, she saw my mom not too long later and told her the same thing. My mom felt much better, and was ready to meet him.
I could say 'the rest is history', but things are never that rosy or straightforward. Although we hit it off extremely well, and are about to celebrate 4 years of marriage, a long distant relationship can be very tough. I would like to talk about that more either next week or the week after, but needless to say, you can still be quite lonely. We didn't get to video call each other until a month or two later, and we didn't 'meet' each other until 9 months after we first talked. We were in the same location for 3 1/2 of the 22 months we 'courted'. These facts meant that we had to figure out how to make a long distant relationship work.
The key to our success, was our willingness to put God first and not each other. We also put boundaries on our physical touching once we were in the same location again. This helped us not to go too fast, and stay pure even though it's tough when you don't see each other for a very long time. We waited to kiss until our wedding day, which made the wait so worth it. I am so thankful I surrendered my relationship status to the Lord. He weaved a story so beautiful, that I could have never even dreamed.
Ten months after we started courting, KJ got on his knee on a three hour cruise in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He asked me to marry him, and a few minutes later, after I had already walked around to show off my ring, he realized he had forgotten to add three magical words. I Love You. We had also refrained from saying that so far. It made it more meaningful to us, and we laugh at the fact that he forgot it in his proposal. Exactly a year after he proposed, we got married.
I also cannot say that we 'Lived Happily Ever After'. That would be a lie. However, we have had such a smooth relationship thus far (perhaps not financially, or with parenting, but how close we are relationship wise). I attribute that to us putting God first, and not taking things too quickly. The fact that he protected my heart by waiting to say I love you, and helping to protect our purity by putting boundaries on how far we went physically.
If you missed part 1 of this series, click here. If you would like to look at my other posts on dating, click here. Last, but not least, stay tuned to hear more about courtship, and long distant relationship tips!
