Two Months of Me and Lana, the Couple

All righty, my sunshine princess wrote an absolutely lovely post on her blog, so if you haven't checked that out (musingsofaservantprincess.blogspot.com), go look at it first; I won't go anywhere in the meantime. The reason I say to read hers first, other than how wonderful it is, is because my post began as a comment for hers and then wouldn't stop growing.

Wow, two whole months since the courtship began, and four years and change since we met! To think you guys (Lana's family, that is) have added three future siblings-in-law for me since that first meeting. I had no idea, my dearest, that you had memorized our names in the directory; that's great! Maybe some unconscious premonition about the *different* family you would one day be a part of.

I think I gradually got to know Lana through the visits to her family's house (all of us kids swam together in their pool; that was fun) and through a Christian worldview Co-op class we took together. That was where I really became impressed with her passion for God, her obvious intelligence, and her love of reading. Some time thereabouts or afterward, my mom told me Lana wanted to start a Christian magazine for teens. Mom thought I might be interested. She's such a matchmaker! (Aw, just kidding; I know the thought had to have crossed her mind, but she wouldn't do that.) Anyways, we started trading e-mails about the mag, continued to see each other when our families were together, and gradually became really good friends.

Then college reared its beautiful head. Lana had originally planned on going to the U of A in Fayetteville (WOO PIG SOOIEE!!!) and majoring in agriculture. But ultimately she decided God was instead leading her to attend the majestic University of Arkansas-Fort Smith and major in Rhetoric and Writing. Guess who had already made his plans to do the same thing?
So yeah, taking classes together and seeing each other every day, on top of the friendship we already had, pretty much cinched that our friendship would grow a lot closer. Of course, I say that in hindsight.

But yeah, I had prayed about her for a really long time, probably since I was like fifteen. I was committed to not giving any part of my heart to her without knowing for sure that we were to marry, but I can't deny hoping that she was the one. I can't deny being basically convinced that she was the one.

I just needed that freedom born of certainty, and it came on Tuesday, February 27, when I fell in love with her and then realized that God had allowed me to, and that she truly was going to be my girl.

So I pined for six months, never hinting anything to her, waiting for the ripe moment; and then I talked to our parents, helped her dad put some candles on the pond, and declared myself on August 23.

Everything in our friendship before that night seems vague, somehow. I try to remember it and think about it, since it represents a beautiful time now that we have moved together into a more beautiful time. But I can't get inside my head, the way I thought and loved then; I think back to treasured memories and I view myself like a character in a play, detached.

And that's okay, because I wouldn't go back to the days of silence for anything. I love Lana and she loves me, and we both know it, and the world does, and that's the way it's supposed to be. And when I leave my father and mother and unite with her and we become one flesh, I know I won't want to go back to these days for anything. But I treasure them now.

So there it is, the first two months of courtship. But I will never, as long as I live, forget the first two hours. Gazing into each other's eyes across the candles, seeing something in the other that we had never seen before. Realizing, again and again, that this is it, our time as singles and just friends is over, and I really am going to enjoy the rest of my life with the most beautiful girl I've ever seen at my side. What I saw in her eyes as I told her I loved her for the first time, and what she saw in mine as she returned my love.

It was a sweet two hours, Lana, and it has been a sweet two months. I have drawn closer to you, opened up more of myself to you, fallen even more in love with you (and I didn't realize that was possible). But positionally, my relationship with you has not changed since that fateful day at the end of February, and it never will: I am truly yours.

"You have captured my heart, my sister, my bride. You have captured my heart with one glance of your eyes..." - Song of Solomon 4:9