My fiancé, Douglas Singer, and I have been friends for -- brace yourselves -- 19 years! Accordingly, the story of our relationship will take quite a while to relate, so brew yourself a cup of tea and get comfortable if you plan to stick with me 'til the end. (Even this version is quite abridged, so count your blessings! To keep yourself awake, you may award yourself points at the end for discovering and pointing out the obvious literary parallel to our romance.)
c. autumn 1991We met when my family moved to Colorado when I was five; at that time, Douglas was nearly seven. Our families had a lot in common -- besides our Christian faith, we homeschooled at a time when it was still fairly unusual. I have a brother a year older than Douglas and his sister, Emily, is a year younger than me, so our mothers used to get the four of us together quite a bit for both playtime and schoolwork. We fell into friendship naturally, and the four of us even started our own club called Fleabag. We had a great deal of fun putting on Fleabag productions such as plays, restaurants, detective agencies, haunted houses, skit nites, etc. When my family moved to Nebraska after four years, the Singers bought our old house. We kept in touch with them through homemade Fleabag Magazines and newsletters. We also visited each other at least once or twice a year.
1993With the advent of common usage of the Internet, we began exchanging more and more e-mails instead of letters. Douglas and I used to have great fun coming up with silly quizzes that mocked those in circulation via forwarding. We've always had a friendship that inspired creativity in one another and a common sense of bizarre humor, too.
Around age 16, a multitude of factors in my life combined and gradually I began pulling away from my Christian faith. Douglas recognized this and tried to talk to me about it, but we usually just ended up spatting in our letters. I was no longer homeschooled at that point and I was very unhappy with my public school situation, so I arranged to drop out of school, take the ACT, and go to college a year earlier than I otherwise would have done. Douglas and I ended up going to college the same year, he on the east coast and I on the west coast. During a get-together over our first Christmas break, Douglas utterly surprised me by proposing to me. I turned him down because I wasn't romantically interested in him (I'd always felt he was more of a brotherly friend), but also because I knew he was following Christ, and I wasn't.
May 2000, at Douglas' graduation from homeschoolAmazingly, our friendship continued fairly unscathed. We still wrote to each other and we'd see each other on occasion because of the closeness of our families. I remained in my state of rebellion for four or five years... Douglas watched me go through some painful and sinful decisions but always remained a constant friend. In 2004, the Lord began to draw me back to Himself through various influences, not the least of which was that I was living under my parents' roof again for my final year of college. Douglas had also moved back to Colorado for graduate school, so we began to see more of each other.
Douglas' sister, Emily, also came to live with my family in 2004 while she attended college nearby, so we began to forge an even stronger friendship with the Singer family. Douglas and I both matured a lot and we had a happier friendship than we had in years, but I still thought of him as just that -- a friend. Unbeknownst to me, Douglas had been struggling with "crushes" on me off and on for years, and had wondered whether he should give things a shot now that my life had turned around. In late 2007, he finally made up his mind to humbly approach me again. We'd invited the Singers to spend Christmas with us, so an opportunity presented itself to him after the holiday festivities died down.
December 23, 2007 -- Douglas in love, Laura totally cluelessWhen Douglas told me of his feelings, I was taken by surprise,
again! I knew he had been interested in me before, but I thought he'd gotten over it; after all, his ill-fated proposal had taken place seven years ago. (Now he definitely wasn't pining for me for seven years, but according to him, in the back of his mind he'd always wondered about the possibility of a romance with me.) At first I was dubious -- was it possible to transition from a platonic friendship to a romance after all these years? I told Douglas I needed time to think and pray.
(I should mention at this point that both my parents and Douglas' parents were totally in favor of the relationship -- as a matter of fact, my dad had pulled me aside for a talk two years previously to suggest that I give Douglas consideration as a potential husband. I balked at the idea at the time and told him all the reasons why I didn't think it would work, so he dropped it and he and my mom took a background role of praying and waiting.)
God began to change my attitude when Douglas and I had some frank discussions about things that are important to us -- faith, family, church, worship, the roles of husbands and wives, contraception and family size, etc. -- and unbelievably, we agreed exactly on everything we talked about! These were all topics we had not really discussed as friends, and I had made some presumptions about Douglas' beliefs based on offhand comments he'd made in the past. I began to realize that God was providing me with exactly what I'd prayed for -- a committed Christian man whose goals, convictions, and worldview I could easily and happily stand behind. I believe that if those important common beliefs are in place, and if a man and woman are committed to following God first and foremost, then smaller details, such as different communication styles and personalities, will fall into place.
Fall into place they did! Douglas proposed to me on March 18 in front of our childhood home in Colorado where we had spent so many happy hours playing together as children. I'm very happy, blessed, and excited because I know God has finally brought us together in His perfect timing. I know Douglas and I will have a joyful marriage built on a foundation of love for our Heavenly Father and for one another. I know that our years of friendship will provide a wonderful starting point for our years of marriage. I know that we will delight in encouraging and edifying one another as we grow spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally. And frankly, we just always have a lot of fun when we're together!
March 16, 2008
Bless the LORD, O my soul!
May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
May the LORD rejoice in His works.Labels: marriage
