In the summer of 2010, I met a girl that I grew to really like a lot. We were both staff at a four-day Christian leadership retreat for college students. Instead of automatically being placed with students from our own campus, we actually had to sign up to be with a specific group of students. Naturally I signed up to be with students from my campus, but this girl and a ministry staff woman from her university both signed up to lead the group with me. Because the staff woman was a new mother and had a baby to tend to oftentimes, she kind of stepped back and let this girl and I take the reins of leading the group. For whatever reason, it just seemed like she and I clicked instantly and it felt like we had known each other for a long time after just those four days. We only lived 45 minutes apart, so we kept in contact through text, talked on the phone every now and then, and hung out a few times. I asked her to be my date to a wedding later in the summer, and she excitedly agreed. I went away to a Bible camp to be a counselor for 7 weeks and we kept in touch through a weekly phone call and we wrote back and forth a couple times. When I returned home from camp, it came up that her brother was going to be in town and her family was going to a baseball game. She had already committed to going to the wedding with me, though, and she was going to do that. I ended up calling her and telling her that this time with family seemed like something really valuable to her and that if she wanted to go with them, I would be completely okay with her not going to the wedding with me, especially because she wouldn't have known anyone there anyway. She accepted my offer, and we decided instead to hang out the Thursday night before wedding weekend. That night was the night that I asked her out on an official date--or rather I asked her to pray about it and that I would too (she had said earlier that day that she thought it was weird when guys had been praying about dating her without giving her that opportunity to pray about it as well). We decided to break contact for the weekend so we could focus on prayer and not get distracted from that, and I told her that I would call or text her early that next week. It actually worked out really well with the wedding and everything because I had time to pray during the drive but also was able to have fun and keep myself from stressing out over "what-if's" all weekend.
Anyways, from the backstory to the romantic gesture:
Early on when we were texting she sent me a picture of a pencil and told me a story about how she was on her way to class and realized she had forgotten something to write with and was kicking herself about it. Then she found this perfectly sharpened pencil on the ground and to her it was a little message from God about how His timing is perfect and that He has the best in mind for her. So anyways, instead of texting or calling her that next week, I sent her a letter explaining what I had sensed from God that weekend--that it was okay to continue pursuing her. But I also put a perfectly sharpened pencil in the envelope and wrote about how I felt that God had perfectly prepared me for that moment in time.
We talked on the phone the next day and she ended up explaining to me about how God revealed a lot of things to her that she hadn't seen before--sinful areas in her life that she needed to address. She said that it really wasn't the answer she wanted to give me, but she felt like God wanted her to remain single for the time being. Honestly, though, while it was not the answer I wanted to hear, I actually praised God after that conversation because of the way I felt that His hand was in that entire thing, from the moment we met up to that conversation.
We've continued to keep in touch since then and while I think she's had a couple of guys pursue her that haven't turned into anything, she's largely remained single over these 4 1/2 years or so. She's been living and teaching in Paraguay for a couple of years now but is planning on moving back to the U.S. in the spring. From a couple of conversations I have had with her in the past few months, she's been pretty marriage-minded lately and will be more focused on that when she moves back. She will no doubt be quite an amazing catch for whoever does marry her.
Okay, I've spilled all my cheese for the day. Back to punching lions and wrestling bears and eating steaks and stuff
