Dating

This is a picture of the day (see date in bottom right corner) Mike and I started dating. We had spent the whole day at a waterpark with our San Diego Summer Project crew and that is where Mike and I talked about "exclusively getting to know each other." This picture is at a bon fire that evening.

We submitted this picture as "the day we fell in love" for a marriage conference we are going to this weekend. It wasn't that we were "in love" in the picture, but Mike likes the picture and he thought it would be a good one to submit. So then I started thinking. How was I feeling in this picture?

SO MANY THINGS! I am in this whirlwind summer project bubble, fresh out of an unhealthy relationship, committed to letting God have total control over my whole life, including whatever was going to happen between Mike and I. The 6 weeks prior to this picture, Mike and I had been spending a lot of time together. Basically every minute we had available. We would DTR (define the relationship) every week and every week we got closer and closer to dating. It all began with Mike not pursuing anything - can you feel my heart sagging! I was devastated, but told him I appreciated his honesty and his forthrightness. From there he wanted to encourage me as a friend. Then he saw qualities in me that he wanted in his wife. Then, he knew he wanted to be with me, but really felt we needed to wait. While we were constantly spending time together and constantly discussing "us" I still felt confused and disappointed.

I wanted to be with him.

But that time of DTR's was good. It was good because we really got to talk about what we desired in our relationship. We set a great foundation of expectations. We both wanted this relationship to be different than our past failures (clearly, otherwise it would have ended as well).

So at the moment of this picture, I think my main thought was, "Is this it!?!?" Not - is this all there is? But - is this the man the Lord has planned for me to spend the rest of my life with?

I am excited, anxious, probably really want to hold his hand, and can't wait for him to meet my family!

I certainly wasn't thinking, "In 5 years, when Mike and I live in Texas, and I work at a church, I am going to write a blog about this moment!"