I don't know if I mentioned on here, but I found my prayer journal from when I first met Duncan and when we first started dating. It may not have been love at first sight, but, man oh man, it was something. I just knew. We clicked instantly. I can still remember the first time we talked, what we were doing, and a few of the following conversations. And, don't I worry, I wrote it allll down, too.
As I had mentioned in
A Love Story (which is not necessarily just about Duncan), I had been in serious relationships before and I was on this new adventure of just being single, so when I met him, I was not expecting anything more than friendship. But, of course, God had something else in mind.
Friends, I fought it. Even in the beginning of our relationship. Well, I'm sure I mentioned that.
But anyways.
Almost a year before I met him, I started
writing letters to my husband. It was an exercise we did once on a girls retreat my senior year in high school. I liked the idea, so I started one.
I once wrote that :
When God created, sculpted, and perfected me before I was even a thought to my parents, He
had my husband in mind. And the same for my husband: he would be created, sculpted, and perfected in God's hands with me in mind.
& yes, I really do believe that.
I am reminded time and time again in my relationship.
Yesterday, Duncan and I had our last meeting with the Deacon at our church for part of our marriage preparation. We've both really enjoyed our meetings and have learned a lot. It's been really nice being able to discuss marriage when someone who has been married for 30+ years. And not just marriage, a Catholic one. (Now, of course I'm not saying a Catholic one is better, but, with each religion, it does have different expectations or quirks). For us, being a Catholic man and wife means really living our vocation as one under the Holy Trinity. But, enough about that jibber jabber.
As I was getting in a really heated, passionate, one-on-one discussion with the Deacon about something I have a real hard time in my relationship with Duncan (something that would be a problem even if I was marrying anyone else), is how big I place my faith against my future husband. Like, I am so stubborn in myself and my relationship that I've developed with Jesus, and I have all these beliefs and ideas about the way things should be that I get caught up with the way God wants our marriage, our parenting, our life together to be. And as I was practically putting Duncan down unintentionally and starting to tear up because Deacon was trying to bring me to reality, Duncan just rubbed my back to console me. He wasn't upset, nothing. Because he understood where I was coming from, regardless of if I was right or wrong. And heck, the man knows me after how many what odd years we've been together.
So, anyways. I guess I'm writing all of this to record it. I thought several times about deleting parts because it's too long, but it's such a wonderful reminder for me for when I read back over this blog in a year or two (do people actually do that?), and remember that moment. It may sound silly, but between Deacon and Duncan I was really was brought back to reality.
See. My biggest fear, is not that something awful happens to me.
But that something awful happens to me and there is a husband and kids in the picture.
{ Being a nursing student doesn't help that fear }
But, hey, it's better to live every single day of your life, than not live at all, right?
I need to be better about choosing to live for God. Because He gave me my amazing family and Duncan to start a new amazing family. And His will will happen whether Duncan is in it or not, or whether I have three kids or twelve, or let my children believe in santa claus, or choose not to have a cable television provider in the house simply because I'd rather my children go outside to play than watch tv all the time (something Duncan agrees on because he has an awesome childhood where he got to do all of this in AFRICA!).
Okay. I'm done rambling. If you've made it this far, thank you.
But mainly, thank you God for creating me, knowing me, loving me.
And surrounding me with wonderful people.
And creating Duncan.
He may be in a pain in the bum sometimes because he's such a boy,
but I definitely couldn't have done a better job myself.
To everyone who hasn't found God's little helpmate for you.
Please don't waste time endlessly searching.
Because God knows you. He knows your timing. He knows your heart.
And more importantly,
He loves you so much and knows you are just going to love the man or woman He's created for you.
