One year ago today, Gabriel knocked on the door of my apartment for the first time, and so began a beautiful forever…
I remember that night so well. I was depressed, actually, and very disheveled in appearance. The last 4 weeks had been some of the hardest of my life, and I was going through Pure Heart‘s inner healing program to boot. I was emotionally shredded. In fact, I don’t think I could have been more broken on the night that would essentially change the rest of my future. I wrote in my journal a month before our meeting:
In the wake of deflated dreams, deferred hope, disappointed anticipation…
Steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies never come to an end,
They are new every morning, new every morning,
Great is Thy faithfulness, O Lord
Great is Thy faithfulnessI bought my wedding dress yesterday.
I have never felt more beautiful.Even in the midst of mourning.
I will indeed dance again.
(That’s right, I bought a wedding dress. It’s a long story, but I felt very strongly that God told me to do it, and He provided for it. Amazingly, the dress was custom made in about 6 months and was delivered just in time for our wedding. God knows what He’s doing.)
Though I had truly felt that my dreams had been absolutely defrauded, this was the first time that my faith in the God’s plan was not shaken. I needed that. I needed that much brokenness for Him to prove to me that what He placed inside me would remain. I needed to know it before He suddenly answered my earnest hopes and deepest desire… because the answer did come suddenly, when I least expected it. This is how it happened…
Anyway, Micah was coming over for tea to cheer me up and had convinced Gabriel to tag along. Gabriel had just moved here from California 2 days prior, so he was having a tough time too, mostly with adjusting to the extreme weather change and homesickness. He even says that he was beginning to think that moving to the Midwest might have been a mistake and he was ready to turn around and retrace his steps back to sunny California. I was shy around this new guy, but I tried to hide it. I wasn’t used to being shy around guys. There was something about him that caught my attention and distracted me out of the weird fog I was in (a “fog” that would quickly clear with each day we spent together). I wanted him to like me. What he thought mattered to me, and that actually bothered me a little bit, but I kinda liked it too. There was something about him that made me realize that I couldn’t play games anymore. It was time to be the real me, and he brought it out of me, however gloriously messy that was. Ha ha! I felt real. Real. For the first time in years. And I knew that I needed this man in my life for the rest of my days on earth.
And now, one year later, I am full of more joy in life than I have ever known, for I have the love of my life, my child growing inside me, and I know my God will never leave me wandering in the dark.
I hope this encourages someone. I hope that somehow you can see that it is not in your striving that God brings about the answer to your heart’s cry. No, it’s in surrender. It’s in trust, even in brokenness. It’s in knowing that He is enough for you. His ways are not our ways. Great is God’s faithfulness.
2 months after we met
