Our Love Story - Part VII

After six years together I was beginning to wonder where our relationship was headed.  Although we were only 21 years old, six years was almost a fourth of my life thus far.

When Caleb and I first started dating he told me that he wanted any relationship that he was in to be routed in Christ.  I thought, "okay, sounds good to me." This was way easier said than done.

Not only did he want to be abstinent until he was married, but he also told me he wouldn't tell any girl he loved her until he decided to make her his wife.

Wow!  A sixteen year only boy said that!

Thankfully, our God is a forgiving God.

Not only was it hard to maintain abstinence after six years with the same person and even though we stumbled at times, not hearing "I love you" from someone that I did love so much was even harder.

Think about it, we say those three little words so often without even thinking about it.  But Caleb didn't want to just throw around the phrase.  He wanted it to actually mean something, and he thought it made the celibacy easier if that level of emotion wasn't brought into our courtship.

Now, looking back we don't know if it helped or hurt, but I will say that the wedding night was not horrible like some may think since we didn't "test drive the car before we bought it."

With all of that said, July 31st, 2006 changed my life forever.

It was a Monday and we had just gotten off work.  Caleb came over to see me for a bit before he went home.  While he was there, our friends called to see if we wanted to go ice skating later that evening.  9pm to be exact.  Strange?  Didn't seem strange to me at the moment.  I was SO excited! This is where Caleb and I went on our first date, except it was closed so we never got to skate and now, six years later, we got our chance to go!

We ate dinner with Caleb's family and then headed to the rink.  On the way there our friends called to tell us they would be a few minutes late.  This was not unusual for them so I still thought this was just a spur of the moment exciting date!

Yeah, I'm not exactly going to be awarded the Nobel Prize anytime soon.

We donned our skates and headed toward the ice.  I was really surprised that no one else was there to skate but figured since it was so late, a Monday, and after a hockey practice that it made sense.

We were all alone on the ice.  All of a sudden the lights went down and one of my favorite songs, You've Got A Way by Shania Twain started playing over the loud speaker.  Walk talked and tried not to fall while the song played, still waiting for our friends to arrive, or so I thought.

As the song changed to Far Away by Nichelback and I thought we were skating pretty strong Caleb fell.  He grabbed both of my hands and fell to both knees.  I tried to help him up but he stayed on his knees and held my hands extra tight.  As he stubbled through a sentence or two (neither of us can recall what he said) he pulled something out of his pocket.

...AND the light bulb went off!

All I heard as he opened the box was, "I love you."

I stood there speechless.   He grabbed my right hand and started to put the ring on my ring finger when I stopped him and held out my left hand.  He placed the diamond on my finger, picked me up, and spun me around.  As we were both laughing and smiling more than we ever have I said, "wait, you didn't even ask me anything."
He responded with, "oh yeah, will you marry me?"

After I said "YES" we skated around and talked about our future.  A wedding date, children, who we needed to call and the fact that our friends were in on the plan the whole time and were never coming.

And there were a lot of "I love yous" too.

Almost eleven months to the day, I married my high school sweetheart.

But not without the devil attempting to rain on our parade first...

Right after getting engaged

The next day!

My custom made ring.  He collaborated with a local jeweler to make a ring specifically for me!

WOW!  Looking at old photos is making me want to go on a diet!