Thoughts on Thursday ~ Thinking Back

Rona is celebrating her anniversary this weekend and was reminiscing about when she and her husband first met.  Then another blogging friend just celebrated her anniversary and posted pics of her and her husband from over the years.  So, it got me thinking about when Rick and I first met.

Come with me on a little journey back ...

In the summer of 2000 I found myself feeling ready to get back out there into the dating world. I told God, "I think I'm ready, but if you don't think I am then I can live with that, but I really think I'm ready." I had grown so much since my divorce, had come to know the Lord, had peace in my life, was raising Kyndal and Dawson on my own (they were 5 and 3).  I remember telling a lady from church one night that "the only way I was going to meet a man was if God brought him to Chuck-E-Cheese or Wesley" (the church we were attending).  

That weekend happened to be the quarterly Camino event (Camino is a type of scripted weekend where followers demonstrate God's grace to those who sign up for the event. The men go on one weekend and the women go on the next. Both husband and wife of a married couple are required to attend on the same weekend.)  Our church was hosting the event.  As a part of the weekend, gifts are given to participants and workers of the weekend, as each person feels led to give them.  For whatever reason, the Holy Spirit prompted me to buy a gift symbolizing perseverance for a man named "Rick" who was giving one of the talks that weekend.  I thought I might know who Rick was, thought I might know his story, but wasn't exactly sure.  So, I bought the gift, wrote a card and wrapped it up.

That afternoon I took my gifts up the church.  I rounded a corner and ran into Rick in the hall.  I passed on by and the weekend came and went.

After the weekend was over, I went home.  I received a phone call the following Tuesday from Rick.  These were the words he spoke to me, "Do you know more about me than I know about you or were you led to write the words in that card?"  I said, "Well, since I have no idea what I wrote, I must have been led to write it."  He went on to tell me how the words were exactly what he was needing to know in that moment in his life.  We talked on the phone for a while longer and ended the call.  (The really funny thing is that I spelled his name "Tallman" instead of "Taulman").

The next weekend was the women's weekend, back at our church.  I was a worker at that event. One night, on my cot, there was a pile of gifts for me.  In the middle of it was a small bag with a cross on it.  The card had a man's handwriting.  I thought it was from a male friend of mine, so I smiled and opened the card.  It was from Rick.  The note was written on a piece of note paper with the scripture, "We love because He first loved us."  Inside the bag was a small book called "Psalms for the Single Mom".  I was blown away and so touched!!!

We saw each other briefly in the prayer chapel later in the week, praying for another person who was giving a talk at that time.  When I turned around he was there and our hands touched. **smile**

When I got home from the event, I had laid all of the gifts on my bed.  Kyndal loved to go through them because there were always little trinket things.  While going through them she started humming a song I sang at church as a child, "We love, because He first loved us!"  I had NEVER heard her sing that before, and I stopped dead in my tracks.  Honestly, I felt like that was just simply a sign from God.

Rick called me that evening and we set a time to go on a date. He lived in a town an hour and half away.  We went out to dinner that Thursday (Zio's) and went for a walk in a park. Then we went back to my house (to relieve the teen babysitter) and sat on the front porch and talked for hours covered up in a blanket (it was late October and chilly).

We've been together ever since.  

I knew He was the one and it has never been a doubt in my mind since.  We never really dated, and never even really talked about getting married.  It just was.

He took a job in Tulsa in January and commuted back and forth for a few months.  I sold my house at the end of March, we moved to Owasso and got married in June (we were wanting to wait for my brother to get back from Europe, and needed to get moved for a job I was taking and so I could get Kyndal in school).

Our married life has been nothing but a blessing to me.  We often wonder together how we would have met in our lives if neither of us had gone on the wrong paths.  We just know we were meant to be together and that we would have ended up together no matter what choices we made, right or wrong.

I hope you enjoyed our story.  What's yours?  In the midst of all of the marital strife going on right now among so many, could you take a few minutes today and remember when you first met .. recalling every moment?  Doing that helps me remember exactly why I love this man of mine.