How I Met My Husband- Part 2

I thought I’d continue the story. (Here is Part 1).

So I met Alex, and was into Lyle*. We became friends through our school’s Intervaristy Christian student group. We started going to the same church. Every Sunday morning, a group of us would meet at a local coffee shop to drive to church together. I found myself always wanting to see Alex first- I felt safe with him He was always positive. It was like we had a little positive bubble around us. But we were still very-much-so “friends”.

We both dated other people. We stopped dating other people. We swing danced sometimes. We prayed together in the tiny little room – in that great, ornate building- reserved for our club as a library. I loved listening to Alex pray. It calmed me and centered me.

And then I left. I transferred to a different college across the country (I had decided I wanted to major in music education, and didn’t have the “classical” training background needed for the conservatory at the school I was in).

We remained friends. I would tell him about people I was dating, almost as a way to prove to myself that he and I were “just friends”- because you wouldn’t tell someone you were interested in about people you were dating, would you?

Something about the thought of dating Alex scared me. I knew it would be very serious, very quickly. I also knew that we would never be able to go back to being “just friends.”

I briefly visited my old school a year later, and noted how much I enjoyed his company, sitting next to each other in the back of a car. It was nice to be able to enjoy his company, even sitting in silence, and I noted that when people are married, they do spend a large part of their lives sitting next to each other. I went back to my new school across the country, and a few years passed.

It was now five years after we’d met. Alex had graduated and was living in Chicago, and I was graduating. He called me, and told me he wanted to pursue me, and that he’d be willing to “cross the country, or the globe, in order to do that.”

I was stunned. I wasn’t sure. So I said, “let’s keep talking.” He visited me. I visited him. And when I visited him, a lightswitch flipped. We were in love.

It was just like Anne of Green Gables and Gilbert Blithe. It was a bud of friendship blooming into a rose of love.

He moved to be near me- though still two hours away- as I was going to school to get my teaching credential. Our preacher, one of the most loving people we’ve known, who eventually married us- let him sleep on his couch when he’d come to visit on some weekends. We were engaged July 2011, and married October 4, 2011.

I’m so, so glad we were primarily friends first. When I fall in love, I become a giddy pile of mush that doesn’t make any sense and can’t see straight. So I was glad that we both knew each other for who we are.

This October will be 10 years. We’re still learning new things. I’m grateful that God brought us together, and that He continues to sustain us.