A Love Story

 

This is not a story of love at first sight. 

This is not a simple story of love, though this is the simple version. At times, it was messy and difficult and hard and required both people to die to their interest in each other. 

Nevertheless: this is my love story. 

I do not remember life without Joel—nor, I think, does he remember life without me. Since we met twenty-two years ago (when I was a babe of 3 months old, and he was a disinterested toddler 3 years of age), life and God have always kept us in touch one way or another. First, we were childhood playmates and friends. I loved the stories he would tell me, invented from his own imagination, and died from suspense as he made me wait week to week to hear the next part of the saga. Together, we explored the woods and played in musical ensembles; from him, I learned chess and the finer points of shooting a basketball into a basket. It was a simple time—three children (because Lauren was also part of our gang!) having delightful times together.

 

Top to bottom: 2004, 2004, 2005, 2009, 2010

As we grew older, our relationship necessarily became more distant. We challenged each other to read through series of books, we made music together with voice and instrument, and we saw each other weekly at church, but our friendship changed and was replaced by friends of the same gender.  

Somewhere along the way, I grew up. And with that growing up came a new awareness. I looked at Joel and admired his leadership, his passion, his purposefulness, his love for God and family, and his great mind, heart, and soul. Slowly and gradually, like the dawning of the sun, I began to think that he would make a wonderful husband and father.  

This was something I struggled with, because Joel had not pursued me. I had no basis and no permission to feel this way. So I prayed, I cried. I thought hard, I thought not at all. Gradually, God made me see that I needed to share this with my parents. If Joel found a nice girl and married her, I would desperately need my parents by my side! Moreover, if Joel decided I was that nice girl he should marry, then my parents would already know my heart.

So two years ago, I went to them and shared what I had never joked about with my girlfriends. What I had never uttered to Joel. What I had never even written in my journal. With tears and more nerves than one girl should have to deal with, I wondered aloud to them—was Joel the one? They listened to me and loved me. They didn’t condemn me, but nor did they encourage me. This was definitely out of our control, and we would just have to wait and see what God was going to do. My relationship with my parents has become even more sweet and precious since I shared my heart with them that night.

In January of 2012, I made a New Year’s Resolution. I usually avoid such resolutions for the obvious aversion to feeling like a failure. This year’s commitment, however, was inescapable, and so I resolved to make God preeminent in my life and on the throne of my affections, so that the things of this earth would grow strangely dim. 

God lovingly and graciously brought so many challenges into my life last year that brought me to just that place. But, oh, the pain.  

At the end of January, Joel took a job as law clerk in Maryland. He was in his last year of law school, and had been looking for just such an ideal job as this to begin to gain experience. Through this and many other circumstances, God ripped Joel from my heart—and replaced him with Himself. I completely died to my vision for my life and what I wanted, and I submitted myself to God’s plan for my life. (My blog post written in the midst of this journey through pain might make more sense now.)

This was also the year that I heard from God truly and clearly for the first time. The year that I came to know God like never before. The year that God became preeminent in my life, the King of my affections; the year that the things of this earth grew strangely dim. 

Then Joel came home for the holidays and to spend the next two months studying for his Bar Exam. I was very interested in not talking to him and, in fact, avoiding him, because I still didn’t trust my flighty heart! He, however, had other ideas. He wasted very little time in emailing my Papa about getting together. And so on December 31^st—the last day of that eventful year that I had given to God—he met with Papa and asked his permission to court me. On January 19^th, he came over to my house and, with the full permission of both sets of parents, asked me if he could court me, to which I joyfully agreed! 

On the night of our engagement!

 

Our courtship brought limited contact, as he was immersed in his studies for the Bar and went back to Maryland shortly thereafter. We certainly managed to make the most of our time together, however, and held email and phone conversations constantly! At the beginning of April, Mama, Papa, and I flew over to Maryland to spend ten days with Joel, and on April 6^th, Joel got down on one knee and proposed! I hardly let him finish, so great was my joy and confidence and delight in saying yes to one of the best men I have ever known.

At Gettysburg

 

There is much more to share—the details of how our courtship worked, the process God took me through to confirm that this was His will, and the wonderful story of our engagement. All this and more I will delight in writing about over the coming weeks.

 

For now, let me just remind you: God is good and God is great! I cannot stop marveling at how good He has been to me. He has truly been the author of my love story!

A Handsome Face

We Notice Beauty

Let’s get something straight—I’m not blind. And most girls I’ve met are not either. So whether we’re watching a movie or walking through an airport or looking through a dusty scrapbook from 1843, we’re pretty adept at noticing the handsome guys. We definitely know the difference between an ugly face and a comely one! This discernment is by no means a sin, either. Scripture makes many such observations, such as that David was “ruddy, with bright eyes, and good-looking (see I Samuel 16:12),” and that Moses “was exceeding fair (see Acts 7:20 KJV).”  

 

When Beauty Becomes Our Downfall

Innocent as it can be, however, our uncanny ability to zero in on the countenances that are goodly to look at can easily be our downfall. Lust starts with a look and a wrong heart (Matthew 5:28), and when Samuel wondered why God didn’t choose David’s older brothers, God responded, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart (I Samuel 16:7b).” Our Saviour Himself “has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him (Isaiah 53:2b).” 

 

Be a Beautiful Soul; Look for a Beautiful Soul

This earthly house I’m in—it’s not me. It’s not eternal. It will be destroyed very soon. If my husband falls in love with me because he likes the house, and knows nothing about the “building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens (II Corinthians 5:1),” then he has made a very poor choice. Likewise, if I give over my left ring-finger real estate for a face, or write off a godly suitor because he’s not that great to look at, then I am a very foolish girl indeed.

 

Walk By Faith

This is where we must walk by faith and not by sight. In choosing a marriage partner, remember that “while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things [done] in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad (II Corinthians 5:6-10 ).” 

Notice the handsome face—fine. But don’t ogle it. Don’t dwell on it. Don’t fall in love with it. Don’t marry it for its sake alone. There is an eternal soul behind that face; is it beautiful or ugly? Moreover, please don’t say “I do” to someone who’s only enraptured with your pretty face. In this area, as in all areas of life, be contrary to your natural inclination, and walk by faith, not by sight, for one day we will all be accountable before Christ for our actions today.

Based upon II Corinthians 5:1-10

Photo Credit: Brandon Christopher Warren

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved

A Lost Heart

Photo Credit



This is a sad story.

But it didn’t start out badly at the beginning, five or six years ago. At the age of fourteen or fifteen, Papa took me out for dinner to one of the nicest restaurants in town. It soon became clear that this was no ordinary meal, and our conversation began to trend towards a topic we had discussed many times since I first began stringing words together. It was the topic of giving my heart to my father and committing to leave it there until the time I give it to the man I marry. I had graduated in understanding from the time I grinningly sang, “I Want to Marry Daddy When I Grow Up” to signing a commitment that night to mark my vow of purity. As a special gift and reminder of my commitment, Papa strung around my neck a beautiful gold necklace with a delicate heart charm, a heart with a keyhole inside of it to which my father has the key. And I have worn it every chance I have had since then.

Last night, sitting in my room, I unclasped my purity necklace and slid the chain off my neck as I do every night after I wear it. But the chain caught in my hair, and as I pulled it free, the heart charm was propelled into the air, and my own heart sank. I spent half an hour on my hands and knees, getting to know intimately every inch of my carpet, and I shook out everything that could possibly have been the landing place of my little charm. All to no avail. Then came the prayers, then the tears, and then more searching. I finally had to call it a night, but I am not calling it quits. I will continue searching, I will not vacuum until I find it, and I will rent a metal detector if I have to, but you can rest assured that I will not give up!

And as I was despondently pulling at carpet tufts last night, my lost purity necklace suddenly flashed into my mind a reminder of how easy and oh how simple it is for a girl to lose her pure heart. My necklace is a symbol, a reminder, and its temporary loss does not change the fact that you can find my heart securely given to God and to my father. But its loss does flood my mind with the renewed realization that all it takes is one careless, unguarded moment, and a girl’s heart can be lost for years.

Proverbs 4:23 reminds me how constant my watch must be:

“Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.”

 I have friends who at one point had given their hearts to their Daddies, but when the temptation came, they pulled off the delicate golden chain that held their hearts safe and flung them into an unknown jungle by choosing to give their hearts to a young man who can hardly grow a soulpatch much less a God-centered relationship.

I know girls whose hearts never were satisfied with that protection of their father, and the delicate gold is sadly dull from so many painful heartbreaks.

And I know a wise wife and mother at church who, every chance she gets, tells me, “Give your heart to your father and leave it there.”

There are those of you girls who, like me, who have heard this every day since toddlerhood, and we face the danger of complacency.

There are those of you girls whose fathers may not be saved or whose fathers may not think about these things, and you face the danger of indifference.

There are those of you girls who may have already lost your heart before, and you face the danger of giving up.

Mark my words, each one of us faces grave dangers to our hearts in this fallen world. There are charlatans who want to own it. There are novels and movies that want to stealthily filch it. There are philosophies that want to control it. But ultimately, the greatest danger, the most treacherous enemy of our hearts is our own pride.

Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?”

When I am queen of my heart, it cannot be God’s, it cannot be my father’s, and it cannot be safe. Any girl who allows a young man to steal her heart dethroned God first and became queen herself, and that is the root problem. 

Proverbs 6:20-24 describes the symbolism behind my necklace and any girl's commitment to purity:

“My son, keep your father's command, And do not forsake the law of your mother. Bind them continually upon your heart; Tie them around your neck. When you roam, they will lead you; When you sleep, they will keep you; And when you awake, they will speak with you. For the commandment is a lamp, And the law a light; Reproofs of instruction are the way of life, To keep you from the evil woman, From the flattering tongue of a seductress.”

And whether I find my lost heart tonight or tomorrow or a year from today, my father’s commands and my mother’s law are still ornaments around my neck, and my true heart is not lost. And whether you began giving your heart to God and your father five years ago or last week, or will begin in two seconds, you can know that we serve Jehovah-M’Kaddesh, the God who sanctifies hearts. Where does your heart lie?

 

Boys on the Down-Low

Krystn Palmer Photography

Ah, boys. Those creatures who, at the beginning of my life, I loved to run with and make believe with and beat at table games. The ones who taught me how to correctly shoot hoops, challenged my pride when I was ready to give up in a game of tag, and got away with a whole lot in front of gullible me. Then, naturally, as I entered my teen years, things began to change. There just wasn’t that same chummy friendship anymore. We had different interests and different lives.

I remember the year I suddenly discovered that I had a power common to every woman in the world. Not to beat a boy at Uno or make him laugh at my knock-knock joke. No, I had the power to make a boy look at me, talk earnestly with me, and even pick me out of a crowd. It has taken many years for me to come to terms with that power, for it is really something I’d rather not have to worry about. And yet, the fact of the matter remains: God created man and woman to choose a partner and covenant together for life, based on not only His will and the guidance of authorities, but also on attraction and love. Brandy, one of our readers and followers had this question over our blog anniversary week:

How do you keep your attraction to boys on the "downlow"? What steps do you take to make sure you are not wrapped up in every boy that may be interested in you...keeping your mind on what God has in store for you now and waiting patiently for what He may have in store for you in the future? I guess I am assuming this is easier for you than other girls your age because your blog is rarely about boys or love, which is something on a lot of girls' minds at your time in life. I think your answers could be useful/helpful in training up my daughter.

After I discovered my new power, I tried it out, like a tadpole who has just sprouted legs and is wondering what in the world they are used for. It only took a few tries, however, to realize that my power was not worth wielding—it could not only hurt someone else, but also me as well. I came to recognize flirting and close relationships with men as selfish. So as I’ve struggled to keep my emotions in check, I’ve found a few helpful practices along the way.

Talking with My Parents

Phew! I know, I know—it’s harder than it sounds. But as I’ve opened up with both Mama and Papa about attractions, I’ve actually become less embarassed about the whole thing. It is not wrong for me to be attracted to someone, but how I handle that attraction brings the opportunity to err or succeed. My parents keep me accountable in my interactions with young men, and that is a powerful incentive as well.

Scripture instead of Fantasy

Perhaps I’m the only one, but the writer in me loves to compose the perfect romance story with me as the perfected heroine. My mind is always busy on something, whether my taxes due in one week, my latest teaching conundrum, my college assignment, or my very own fairy-tale. If I train my mind onto the things of God instead of the things of the world, however, God has a powerful way of honoring that choice by reducing my temptations and revealing Himself to me. What can be a stumbling block becomes a magnificent opportunity for fellowship with my Creator.

Avoiding Close Relationships with Men

I’ve written at length about this before, so I hope you read "An Honest Heart" if you haven’t already. It’s also worth mentioning that I do not subscribe to “dating” as the world defines it, and you can read the series Lauren and I wrote last year about this starting here. To summarize, however, I don’t believe that men and women should be close friends. We should treat members of the opposite sex as if they were taken, because they most likely will be married someday.

I do think about boys and love, and I certainly hope to get married. However, I always have to come back to Philippians 4:8:

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.”

It is not virtuous for me to flirt with men. Gossiping with girlfriends about crushes or handsome celebrities is not of good report. It is neither lovely nor pure for me to dwell on guys in my thoughts. Because of this, there is a regular, purposeful choice in my heart to keep my attraction to boys on the “down-low.”

Brandy, you asked a tough, but wonderful question. I am by no means qualified to give you advice on mothering your daughter, but I hope that by answering this question from a daughter’s perspective, I have helped you and the rest of the daughters and mothers who read!

 

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Man of My Dreams

Night was falling fast; it was already dusk, and frogs began to warble, and the crickets chirruped their pleading, dissonant chant. The moon was slowly rising above the little hill, and the field of wild sunflowers was slowly shrinking into the shadows as each pretty head drooped downwards for a pleasant rest. As the oldest of the six brown-haired kids clustered around the murky pond, I reckoned that it was my responsibility to give them the ending signal.

"Come on guys,” I said, breaking through the night’s enchanting sounds. “It's time to go in.”

“Aw, please Amy? We only got three tadpoles,” Joe, eleven years old, protested.

But I stood firm, and soon had them all herded into the house—quite a feat actually. Mom was waiting for us. She efficiently whisked the protesting young ones away to bed, and stillness soon blanketed the house.

I had the unspoken duty of taking care of the tadpole triplets, so I poured the squirming bodies into a bowl full of creek water and placed it on the counter. Eventually, I made it upstairs to the attic-style room that I shared with the second oldest, Beth. The hot room smelled of nail polish and bleach, so the window was wide open, filling the room with a glorious night-time perfume. Beth was already asleep, her chest moving up and down with each deep, loud breath.

I was just falling asleep myself when I felt a startling jab on my back. I jerked around to see what it was, only to find Sam, my three year-old brother; he gazed up at me precociously, his eyes rounder than any I had ever seen before.

“Can I sleep wif you?” He asked, climbing into bed without waiting for an answer. I sighed, and then smiled, resigning myself to company for the evening.

“Come on Sammy. Snuggle under.” I tucked my blankets around him and me.

A few seconds of blissful peace ensued, during which my energetic thoughts became increasingly more fuzzy and incoherent, and my heavy eyes began to droop. Instantly they shot open again when Sammy’s voice rang out. “Tell me a story,” he commanded.

My older-sister instincts kicked in. “No hon, not now,” I soothed. “Right now is bedtime, not story time.”

Sam didn’t like that very much; he begged, pleaded, berated, and abused, becoming so loud and downright annoying that he woke up Beth. But I finally managed to get him to settle down, threatening him with every applicable punishment that I could think of. Again the room was quiet, but now I couldn’t sleep. My thoughts persisted in rolling around each other, like the numbers in a bingo spinner.

“Sammy,” I whispered at one point, “are you still mad at me?”

“Yes,” came the brusque answer.

"Don’t you love me anymore?” I continued, trying to get him to break down and forgive me.

“No. And I won’t pick you any more flower, ‘cause you won’t tell me a story,” he replied, in a shrill voice.

I knew that he would forget the whole thing by morning, as he always did—but I still wished that he wouldn’t get so angry with me. In the end I gave up and rolled over onto my stomach to try and get some sleep. Sammy had crept all the way on the other side of the bed with his back to me; now he pulled all the blankets on top of him, and I was left shivering in the cold draft coming from the window.

For the third time that night, I was almost asleep, until a little hand crept across my back, encircling me in its embrace. This time I forgot any annoyance and was instead filled with elation.

“I love you,” I whispered hopefully into deep blue darkness.

“I love you too.”

“Are you still mad at me?”

“No-oo.”

I lay there for a while, grateful for a brother, however young, who loved me. I thought about my girlfriends, some already flirting and going out with boys. Why did I need to, when I had a cute boy who would put his chubby arms around me, stroke my long brown hair, and tell me that he loved me? I decided then and there that if I ever married someday, it would be to the same kind of a man: warm, friendly, comfortable, and unconditionally loving. Someone that you didn’t have to flirt and put on a show for. With a peaceful darkness enveloping the room and the stars shining through the window like glistening glass shrapnel on velvet, I leaned over and softly kissed Sam, assuming that he was asleep by then. But he opened one bright eye to look at me.

“I’ll pick you a flower t’morrow, Amy,” he mumbled. I smiled, sleep forgotten; that was the icing on the cake.

Picture Credit

A Date with Dad and Other Wonderful Adventures

I remember seeing an Adventures in Odyssey album (a radio drama series) entitled A Date with Dad and other Calamities. I have never listened to it in order to discover if that was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek or not, but I must say that it has always made my blood boil! Last night, I was reminded again how I treasure spending time with Papa when Mikaela and I had a most wonderful date with our dad.

The beautiful evening began almost as soon as we were driving off. Someone glanced up at the rainy horizon and saw there, stretching across the sky, a double rainbow! For the next few minutes we were all spellbound as we stared at God's double reminder of His promise! After running a few errands we headed off to the Olive Garden for dinner. In a large family, one-on-one time with Papa is a treat, and we had a wonderful time catching up over pasta and salad. We were on a mission, though, because we had tickets to see Itzhak Perlman perform with the Oregon Symphony. (For those of you who don't know who he is...poor people...he is almost unarguably the greatest living violinist.) Therefore, we did have to slurp our pasta quickly.

While we were eating dinner, we mentioned to our waitress that we were going to this concert. She had a very interesting reaction. "Oh," she said. "That sounds like the kind of concert that you would come away from refreshed and...well, edified. Most concerts you leave and you're just exhausted and drained, you know? But that sounds like something that would really refresh you." Our waitress was quite the astute observer, not to mention a great balancer of plates.

All right, now here is where things begin to get exciting. We had just enough time to make it to the concert hall in Portland, but of course it could not be that simple. We had to make memories! We missed our exit, but finally got back on track with me as co-pilot. Whew! We could not find a parking spot, but finally settled for the garage. We ran up to the will-call booth, relieved that we had made it, only to discover that our tickets were not there for some reason. No worries, the customer service table wrote us out new ones. We finally found our seats in the sold-out concert hall with five minutes to spare and wondered, "Now where's that refreshment and edification?"

When Itzhak Perlman finally limped out on his crutches (he had polio as a child and cannot walk without them), everyone leaped to their feet and gave him a standing ovation. It was a very emotional moment, and I still cannot believe that I was able to see this amazing man in person.

For the next two hours, I can honestly say that I did not think about wrong turns, Barack Obama, the recession, my to-do list, or my messy closet. We all just listened with joy and awe to the lilting music. Today it's back to leftovers, dark circles under my eyes from last night, baby-sitting two-year olds, and messy closets. But do you know what? When you had a date with your dad last night, that stuff really doesn't matter anymore.

Note: The top photo is of me, Papa, and Mikaela last year. The photo of Itzhak Perlman is from performingarts.ufl.edu. We didn't get a photo of us and Itzhak Perlman, although there's always Photoshop... (-: