The Story of My Life: Finding Love

You might have noticed that I haven't really talked in any of my posts about boys and relationships.  I didn't date anyone in high school and in college, even though I went on a few dates with a few different guys, there was really only one serious relationship out of all of them.  I started dating him my senior year.  He himself was only a sophomore.  We dated for a couple of years and then got engaged.  Right after we were engaged, I went on the summer missions trip to Romania.  When I came home after that month, I felt God was calling me to return to Romania for a year on another short term trip.   When I initially shared this with him, he was okay with the idea of me going overseas for a year before we were to be married. After all, at this point in time he was just beginning his senior year in college.  A couple of months later, he called and said he wanted to move forward with our relationship and he didn't want me to go overseas. He told me that I could marry him or I could go to Romania, but I couldn't do both.   It was at this point I had to make a really hard decision. At 24 years of age, I felt like I was Abraham being asked to offer Isaac on the altar.  I had to tell him that if he was asking me to choose between what he wanted me to do and what God wanted me to do, that we couldn't get married.

Less than a year later, I found myself in Romania teaching at the kindergarten. I had such peace about being there that I knew that I had made the right decision. After coming home from that year overseas though, I did begin to struggle a bit.  A lot of my friends were getting married and I just found myself alone and wondering if I would ever be married. I went out with a couple of guys, but only for a brief amount of time. I wasn't about to waste my time dating someone that I knew wasn't a good fit for me.

In the summer of 2003, I was with my friend Michelle at her parent's lake house. We went for a ride on the jet ski and after a while, we turned it off and just had a good heart to heart talk out in the middle of the lake. I shared with her my discouragement about being single and she encouraged me to give it to God.  Out in the middle of the lake, we prayed and I went away that day determined to be content with where God had me in life and if I was going to be single, I was going to make the most of it. Little did I know that He had a big plan for me that was about to unfold.

About a month or so later, I was invited to a birthday party for a kid named Kyle who was in the youth group that I was helping with at church. He was turning 14 and was having the party on a Friday night at his "Uncle Steve's" house.  His Uncle Steve wasn't really an uncle, but a close family friend.  I had heard about this "Uncle Steve" from Kyle and his friend, Ben (who really was Steve's nephew) before.  They had tried to convince me when we were on our missions trip in July that I should go out with him.  I asked them to tell me about him. They started off with,  "Well, he is about 40......"  Uh, no. That did not at all sound very interesting to me. After all, I was only 29 and 40 seemed so very old.  "He is rich," they would say.  I asked them why they thought that. Their response was that he drove a BMW convertible so he had to be. I assured them that lots of 40 year old single men would be able to afford a BMW convertible since they didn't have a wife or kids taking all of their money.

 So anyway, when I was invited to the party, I agreed to go.  I figured it would give me a chance to meet this "Uncle Steve" and then they would leave me alone about him.

Friday afternoon came and when I got home from work, there was a message on the answering machine from Kyle's mom saying that the party was changed from that evening to the next day.  I had already made plans with my friend Michelle to go to her parent's lake house, like we had done many times in the past, for our birthdays on Saturday. So since the party was off, I packed up my stuff and headed to the lake house a day early and just skipped Kyle's party.

The following Monday was Labor Day.  There was no school and I had gone to teach piano to a couple of sisters who were also in the youth group.  While I was there, the older of the two girls was telling me all about Kyle's party. She really enjoyed telling me how Uncle Steve complained the whole night that I wasn't there. He whined that the kids had all promised I would show up, but I hadn't.  I rolled my eyes and said, "Oh brother! I am an adult and he is an adult. If he wants to meet me that badly, just give him my number."  At that, she jumped up instantly from the piano bench, ran over to the computer and instant messaged my number to Ben.

On Saturday, September 6th, just a few days later, I came home from working at Dress Barn. My roommate immediately let me know that I needed to listen to the answering machine because I had a message from "Uncle Steve".  I listened to the message.  He was unsure if he was really supposed to have my number since it was given to him through his nephew Ben.  If I was, he asked me to call him back and left his number which he slowly repeated for the second time in the most hilarious voice.  After laughing at the message with my roommate a few times, I called him back.

He answered the phone and we had a delightful conversation.  Before ending the conversation an hour later, he asked me on a date for the following Saturday.  I have to admit. I was pretty impressed. I had been talking with another guy on the phone that someone was trying to set me up with for over a month. He had yet to ask me out.

The following Saturday came, September 13th.  Steve picked me up around noon.  I remember opening the door and noticing his beautiful blue eyes right away.  I also felt in my heart that this was the guy I was going to marry. Don't ask me how I knew. I just did.  I decided that I was not going to do anything to force it to happen, but rather just sit back and enjoy the moment.

He took me to the Wake Forest/ Purdue football game. I love the atmosphere of any type of sporting event, so this was a perfect first date for me.  To make it even more perfect, he bought me a hot dog at the game for lunch.  I went with the regular hot dog so I wouldn't look like a glutton, even though I would have rather had the big supersized dog.   Steve was hoping to have pizza, but they were out, so he settled for the supersized dog.  I didn't know this at the time, but he doesn't really like hot dogs. So when he only ate half of his hot dog and then crumpled it up in the wrapper and threw it away, I was appalled. Hot dogs are one of my favorites and should never be wasted. lol!

Overall, we had a really good time. Lots of good conversations and laughs. He took me home and then stood at the stop of the stairs right outside of my apartment and continued to talk with me.  It was a warm day, so I invited him in to the air conditioning to meet my roommate and hang out for a while.  We all sat around and talked and then after a bit, he invited both of us to go out to dinner with him. I found out later that while I was in another room, he had convinced my roommate to say yes to his dinner request because he didn't think I would go without her.  His pleas worked and we went.

When I went to bed that night I was excited and hopeful.  I think Steve must have felt the same way.  The next evening as I was sitting in the pew at church waiting for the service to start, I felt a tap on the shoulder. I looked up to see Steve standing there and he asked if he could sit with me.  I said he could and inside the butterflies were having a hay day.

We spent lots of time in the next few weeks hanging out, going to dinner, and just talking to each other for hours on end. When my schedule was busy with activities at school, he would come sit with me while I was keeping the volleyball books or come along with me to the cross country meets. I loved this. I didn't feel like I was having to do anything to make this relationship work. Steve was showing me that he wanted to be with me and was willing to do whatever he had to in order to make that happen. It was something that I have never really experienced before and I liked it.

Two weeks into the relationship, we were at my parent's house for Sunday lunch. We had been there the week before because my parents decided they didn't want to waste any time getting to know this guy that was showing interest in me.  They must have been pretty impressed by him since my dad inquired of Steve at this second meeting when he was going to marry me.  I about died of embarrassment at that moment, but inside it just seemed to be confirmation that this was the guy.  I had always prayed that my parents would whole heartedly approve of whoever I was to marry.  This was just an answer to that prayer.

On October 18th, five weeks after our first date, Steve had planned to take me to dinner. His mom and  stepdad were in town from Indiana and he invited my parents to come along as well.  He called me a couple of hours before the time we were going to meet to see if I was interested in going along with him to run some errands before dinner.  I said sure. We drove around for a bit and then all of a sudden, we were turning into the football stadium where we had gone on our first date.  There was no game that day. He mumbled something about having to meet someone inside.  The gate was unlocked and he led me inside.  The next thing I know, we are in the place where we sat on our first date.  Steve looked at me and asked me if he could ask me three things.  First, would I make him the happiest man in the world? Second, would I do the honor of being his wife? And lastly as he got on his knee,  he asked if I would marry him and opened the ring box.  He says I hesitated.  I say I was in shock.  After a couple of moments, I excitedly said yes.  As we stood there embracing, he signaled to his friend in the sound booth and the stadium was filled with the sounds of Mercy Me's song "Spoken For".  He finished off this beautiful time by giving me a Bible and saying that he always wanted to keep God first in our relationship.  I still couldn't believe it was all happening.  It was so very perfect!

We met our parents at the restaurant. I kept pointing out things to my mom on the menu with my left hand and once she realized there was a ring on it, there were shouts of joy and many tears.  After dinner, we spent the rest of the evening talking excitedly of the future and sharing the good news with our family and close friends.

We chose a December date only 8 weeks out.  There wasn't a lot of time to do a lot of complicated planning. It was almost as though God confirmed that we were supposed to to be together as detail after detail just fell into place with almost no work. We received 6 weeks of marriage counseling from my pastor before our big day. Something we will always be thankful for as it has been a tremendous help to us through our entire married life.


The wedding day arrived. It was cold, but sunny.  I got ready at the church with a few of my closest friends by my side. I remember watching the guests arrive out of the upstairs fellowship hall window and thinking, "This is it!" There were lots of tears as my dad began crying before he walked me in, then I began crying, then Steve began crying when he saw me. Then my mom and his mom started and lots of other people joined in.  It was a sweet ceremony and afterwards, we celebrated with food and friends in the gym of the school where I taught.  With an entry lined with Christmas trees, a handbell choir playing in the background and a heart full of love,  it was a perfect end to a perfect day.

And when I look back on that day, thirteen years
exactly today, I am so very thankful.  God blessed me with a truly wonderful man, who has stood by my side and loved me unconditionally, even when I was unlovable.  He has been the biggest encourager and supporter of me through some very difficult times.  He prays for me and patiently leads me to be a more godly person and a better wife.  He is my best friend, my companion for life, and the everlasting love of my heart.

"Uncle Steve", I am so glad that I can call you mine.  <3

The Story of My Life: The Post-College Days

I graduated from Cedarville College (now Cedarville University) in December of 1995.  From that time until 2003, my life was filled with lots of different activities and experiences.  There wasn't really anything during that time that directly impacted the way I felt about being adopted or my adoption experience, so rather than writing a whole blog post about that period of my life, I thought I would just share a few pictures and tell you briefly about them.

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My first big life experience after college was purchasing a car.  This beauty here would be my transportation for 7 years. We went on several road trips together and overall, she treated me fairly well.  I bought her with 85,000 miles and she had over 200,000 by the time I let her go.




In the fall of 1996, I began teaching 6th grade at Woodland Baptist Christian School in Winston-Salem. I really loved working with middle schoolers.  I had a great group of kids to teach and was surrounded by some wonderful co-workers.

I worked part-time at Dress Barn from the time I graduated college until the fall of 2003.  I usually worked Saturdays and also holidays and summer breaks.  I loved selling clothes and helping people put together outfits. I had some pretty fun co-workers and we would occasionally do crazy things like dress up for Halloween or dress up and stand in the window of the store pretending to be mannequins.

For Christmas of 1996,  my parents bought me a black cockapoo.  I named him Midnight.  I treated him like my baby, letting him sleep in bed with me and taking him everywhere with me in the car.  He was my loyal pet up until he died in November of 2012.

In the summer of 1997,  I helped lead a team of six college girls from Cedarville on a month long missions trip to Romania. The purpose of our trip was to work in orphanages over there.  We worked in a church run orphanage for three weeks and then spent time in a state-run orphanage for handicapped children for the other week. While there, we also managed to find some  time to have a little fun.

                          

During the time that we were in Romania and in the months afterwards, I felt God calling me to a short-term trip overseas. So after teaching my second year at Woodland, I left on a year long missions trip to Romania.  I taught English in a what they call a kindergarten.  It is similar to preschools here in the United States.  Even though it was difficult fighting the homesickness at times (especially during the holidays),  it was still one of the best years of my life.

    

After coming home from Romania, I taught at Woodland for one more year.  It was an especially exciting year in sixth grade as we were able to take a field trip to Washington D.C. at the end of the year. 

In the fall of 2000,  I changed schools and began teaching at Salem Baptist Christian School in Winston-Salem. I taught middle school math to 6th - 8th graders.  I love math, so this was especially fun for me.  Again, I felt blessed to have such good students and be surrounded by wonderful co-workers. 

I loved to keep the books for the volleyball and basketball games, so I was always busy in the evenings helping with one sport or another. I was even talked into coaching cross country for a couple of years, which was I found hilarious because I had never done any running in my life.

I was super involved at my church, working in the youth group and playing the piano.  I taught piano lessons some on the side. I also loved hanging out with my friends, having fun and going to the Winston-Salem Warthogs games, our local minor league baseball team.

 

These were some super busy, but fun, years of my life.  It was a time filled with lot of learning experiences for me, both good and bad.  I made lots of good choices, and some bad ones.  But all in all, God was using this time as a time of growth, preparing me for the days that were to come....

More on that in the next blog. :)

The Story of My Life: Thankful

I am so blessed.  I have been given one of the greatest gifts ever and for it I am so very thankful.  You have been given one of the greatest gifts too.  That is the gift of life.

Maybe you haven't really thought about it or maybe you don't really see life as a gift.  For me, I have thought about it often. I've thought about what I would have missed out on if I hadn't been given that chance.


The chance to be a daughter, to feel loved and cared for.
The chance to be a kid, laughing and running in the sunshine.
The chance to be a student,  in awe of every new thing learned and discovered.
The chance to be a friend and to have some pretty amazing friends.
The chance to find love, the once in a lifetime kind.
The chance to be a mom and watch my children blossom and grow.

The list could go on and on....

I know, if things had turned out differently, who is to say that I would even realize that I was missing out.  But then again, who can say that I wouldn't.


Just recently, before the elections, I was riding home in the car with my kids.  They were talking about all of the political signs on the side of the road and all the different issues that were involved in the election:  Taxes, pollution, common core, abortion, etc.   From the back seat, our daughter piped up and said, "Mom, what is abortion?"  I explained it in the most age appropriate way that I could to an eight year old.   That sometimes when a woman gets pregnant, for one reason or another but often because she isn't married,  the woman decides she doesn't want to keep the baby, so she goes to a doctor and he helps her get rid of it. Then I hear a huge "Oh".... and after a moment of silence she says,  "Mom, I know why abortion is such an important issue to you....because your birth mom could have had you killed."

I was amazed. She got it.

I was born in 1973.  It was a pivotal year in the abortion world as Roe vs. Wade was passed in January,  just months before my birth in August. I have often thought about the fact that my birth mom was just a couple of months along at that time. Young and unmarried, I have wondered if abortion was ever something that she considered. And every time I think about it, I am so thankful that she didn't make that choice.

Abortion was the topic I chose for my persuasive speech during my freshman year of college. I picked it because I figured it would be a topic with a bit of personal connection to it. Little did I know the effect that the study and research would have on me. Although I knew generally what abortion was before that time, I found the details of the procedures that I read about to be haunting and the possibility of what could have been became more real.

 I introduced the speech by sharing a story of how I imagined a young college aged girl to be as she found out she was pregnant, a story similar to what I imagined things were like as it was realized that my existence was just beginning. Alone and scared, this girl pondered what her options might be. Adoption. Abortion. What would she choose?  When I reached the conclusion, I announced to the class that this young girl had made up her mind.  After much deliberation, she chose life.  As a result of her choice, I was able to stand before the class and give that speech.  It was at that point,  I broke down and cried.

I have always been thankful for the gift of life.  It is something I have thought about often since I was a young person.  I realize the sacrifice that was made by my birth mother to go through pregnancy, birth me, and then give me up.  This sacrifice became even more real to me after I had my own children.   I cannot imagine what pain could have come through the kind of separation of having to give up your child. It could only have been done out of great love.


In my teenage years, at times I thought and wished for an opportunity to tell my birth mom thank you for what she had done for me.  I wondered if I wrote Ann Landers and asked her to publish my letter in her column of the newspaper if somehow my birth mom would happen to read it and realize that it was me talking. But then I realized the chance that could happen was pretty slim.
So, I never wrote the letter.

But God granted me the desires of my heart and through a crazy unexpected turn of events, many years later, I was able to thank her.

More on that coming soon....