grace-filled conversations among kindred spirits
Ben got down on one knee, and though he did say more, all I remember hearing was, “Meghan, will you marry me?” To this I shouted, “Are you kidding? You have got to be kidding me!” Eventually, I calmed down enough to say, “Yes.” I feel so blessed to be marrying Ben.
As the months went on, I began to understand more and more about how my (INTJ) brain worked. Thoughts were thought of and feelings followed. First, I had to logically determine my thoughts about Randy and wait until my subconscious felt safe enough for emotion to appear.
He figured that if he sprang the whole “God wants me to marry you” line, she’d never speak to him again. But he also knew that God is not the kind of person who lets you down when you are trusting Him.
Toward the end of the summer of ’08, I wrestled with the Lord and with my own heart and mind regarding the subject. I distinctly remember walking one cool August night, praying that God would show me His will. I prayed then as I had prayed many times before: “Lord if my relationship with Sophie is not what it ought to be, I pray that you would remove her from my life.”
In the sixth grade classroom up the stairs and to the left, a red-cheeked boy sat behind a frizzy-haired girl. They each wore glasses far too large for their face. He sneezed six times and she rolled her eyes.
Hannah’s alert father took 13-year-old Joseph aside and let him know it wasn’t the time for romance. He would be keeping his eye on him.
When Ryan and I look back over all our years together we are filled with such awe when we see how that the Lord has brought us together so perfectly!
We did a few things right and a lot of things wrong. But the Lord, as He always seems to do, used the year to refine both of us yet further as we struggled through many new things together. We learned dependence on God and dependence on each other. We both felt the desire for the time apart to be over, yet the strain of not knowing when we could get married.
Although Kerry will admit to being slightly embarrassed by the fact that he asked me to be his girlfriend in the parking lot of a grocery store, I think it was adorable and perfectly suited to his personality.
In that next year of waiting on the Lord, I came to appreciate so many things about Merritt—but especially his practical wisdom and his patient trust in God.
