A Love Story for Valentine's Day

It’s Valentine’s Day, so I thought that I’d deviate from my usual format and share a little bit about how I came to meet and marry my wonderful husband. I’m sure that everyone says this, but I think that we have quite an interesting story. And, for those of you who find yourself wondering if you’ll ever find “the one,” I hope that our story will offer you some encouragement.

Rewind several years to the summer of 1984. I was 17 years old and heading off to college, and I had everything planned out. I was going to finish college, get married, and be done having children by the time I was 30 years old. However, as time passed, I watched that dream slowly slipping away – at least the part about getting married and having kids. By the time I finished graduate school, I had decided that maybe it was time to “stop looking” and just get on with my life and my career. However, in spite of that decision and the fact that I usually avoided singles conferences like the plague, I decided – at the strong urging of one of my friends – to check out a singles event that his church was sponsoring.

I didn’t meet the man of my dreams at the conference, but I did make some great connections that ultimately led me to him a few years later. As a result of the conference, I started attending a small church that had recently been planted in my town. Every Wednesday night, a small group of us would meet to pray for the church and for our community – and for a man named Charles who had recently moved to China to teach English. We faithfully prayed for him every week.

As we prayed going into the new year of 1995, my pastor had a word for me that this was going to be my year – the year that the things I had dreamed of would come to pass. He was right! I had always dreamed of going to the Grand Canyon and got that opportunity. I had always dreamed of going on a mission trip and I got to do that as well. I had dreamed of working for a particular company in the area and ended up getting a job there. Of course, in the back of my mind, I also wondered if this would be the year when I would finally meet my husband-to-be.

During the summer of 1995, the mysterious Charles from China came home for a few weeks of R&R before heading back there for a new job. We didn’t spend much time together, but on the weekend before he left, all of the singles went out to lunch and to see the movie Apollo 13. While we were talking, we got onto the subject of dating and he expressed many of the same opinions that I held. That sparked my interest, and for the rest of the afternoon, I kept having these moments where I thought that he just might be the one.

A few weeks after he left, I was talking with one of my good friends (who also happened to be the pastor’s sister-in-law), and I mentioned that the only guy I had been interested in for a long time had just gotten on a plane for China. What a bummer! Then, she told me that Charles had mentioned to the pastor that he was interested in me! So, the pastor gave me Charles’ e-mail address and suggested that I should write to him in China to encourage him while he was away from home.

I took the pastor’s advice, and for about 6 months, Charles and I e-mailed each other regularly, and we got to know each other pretty well. At the end of the year, he decided to come back home because his mom was in poor health and he wanted to be closer to her. I didn’t find out until years later that he had told his brother when he arrived home that he had also come back because he had met the girl that he was going to marry!

After he came home, our friendship grew, but he didn’t want to ask me out on an official date until he had found a new job and gotten settled into his own place. Finally, in April of 1996, he asked me out and I said yes. Things were going great for a while. However, later that year, we attended a missions convention together, and things almost fell apart. Charles was busy talking to lots of old friends and making lots of new ones. I felt like he was ignoring me, and he felt like I was being emotionally immature. We weren’t quite sure what was happening, but it definitely pushed us apart for a while. Then, we discovered the book The Five Love Languages. It turns out that my love language is quality time. Charles felt like we were having quality time together as long as we were both in the same place at the same time – even if we were doing completely separate things, and that didn’t work for me. Once we discovered what our love languages were, it really helped us to put some things into perspective, and our relationship took off again.

I still had one more hurdle to clear before Charles would be ready to ask me to be his wife. You see, he had never planned to get married. He frequently travels to 3rd world countries to share the good news with people who haven’t had the chance to hear, and he felt like having a wife and family might hinder him in those endeavors. So, I had to pass a test (although I didn’t realize it at the time) to show him that I could make it under less than ideal conditions. We travelled to Hong Kong in the summer of 1997, and we stayed in some pretty basic places – no hot water, no western toilets, sporadic electricity. We stood out in the 100 degree heat and 99 percent humidity for hours on end and then had to walk for blocks in order to catch the only bus that could take us back to the youth hostel where we were staying. I think my ability to cope with all of the crazy things that happened on that trip finally convinced him that I could fit into his plans.

As we approached Christmas (1997), Charles asked me if I would go with him to the Christmas Eve service at Duke Chapel. My Christmas tradition was to spend Christmas Eve with my family, so I put up a lot of resistance. Finally, we found a compromise and decided to go to the early service at Duke Chapel. At the end of the service, while the organist was playing some hideous music (we both distinctly remember that point!), Charles pulled out a beautifully wrapped box and handed it to me. Ever the clueless one, I opened it and saw a music box, and politely thanked him for the lovely gift. He told me to open it, and to my amazement, there was a beautiful sapphire and diamond engagement ring inside! He asked me to marry him, and of course, I said yes. I also told him that if he had given me some indication that he was going to propose, then I wouldn’t have put up such a fight about going to the Christmas Eve service with him!

Fast forward to November of 1998 – the Saturday after Thanksgiving. UNC and NCSU were playing football that afternoon – which threatened to throw a monkey wrench into all of my plans. However, the game was early afternoon, and the Tarheels won, so Charles was in a great mood and our wedding went on as planned later that evening. We’ve been married now for 12 and a half wonderful years and we’ve been blessed with two beautiful daughters. I am so blessed to be able to share my life with the man that I adore – who also happens to be my very best friend.

So, I didn’t achieve my goal of being married before I was thirty – and I was of “advanced maternal age” when I finally had my children – but I wouldn’t change a thing because I’ve found my happily ever after.

“Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away.” – Song of Solomon 8:7