John and I met at a college age bible study at my church; I was 19 and he was 25. It's a very long story and we both remember it differently but lets just say we didn't hit it off. We had the same friends from that group of people and were around each other from time to time but neither of us wanted to even be friends with the other. It was a few years later before our "love story" would begin.
He lived one town over from me and his dad was the pastor of a church over there. I had started going to his dad's church with his sister-in-law while her husband was deployed. I instantly fell in love with the small church and knew it was where God wanted me to be. His sister-in-law and I were both still living in the next town so we would drive over to church together and I would end up hanging out with his family on Sundays because I was with her. I fit right into his family and we all fell in love with each other. At this point, John still wanted nothing to do with me and refused to ask me out when his parents would try and suggest it.
Not too long after I turned 22 I moved into a house with two girls in the town John was living, right down the street from John and his roommate. We all hung out a lot because we were friends and lived very close. I had developed a crush on John even though he was stubborn and didn't want to have anything to do with dating me, and one day as I was leaving their house I told the Lord, "I want him. He is the one I want." I felt like the Lord said, "Okay." I didn't want to get my hopes up or get in the way of God changing his heart towards me because I knew that only God could. To my surprise, John eventually took me out on a date. He told me he had begun to develop feelings for me but was sure that we weren't meant to be together and he would most definitely hurt me. I almost didn't hear him because I knew that he had no idea what God had in mind for u
Thus began our relationship saga. We dated for about 10 months and in that time I think we broke up about 10 times. We would fight terribly and say horrible things to each other, break up, and then not be able to stay away for more than 2-3 days. John said he didn't know that we were supposed to be together but he didn't know that we weren't. He couldn't let me go but he couldn't commit to be with me either. We fought all the time, mostly about how I knew that I knew that I knew we were supposed to be together and he just didn't know. I tried so hard to convince him of what I knew God wanted instead of letting God do the work on his heart. We finally broke up for a good 2 months and it was the hardest thing I ever had to do. I was terrified that the only man I wanted would never realize that he wanted me too. We talked in this time and were around each other a lot but still didn't see eye to eye on where we stood.
Finally I gave up. I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't fight for him anymore, and I knew I wasn't supposed to. He needed to be the one that wanted me and I told God that even though I wanted him so bad, I wanted him to want me even more. So, I let it go.
A few days later John begged me to talk because he had something to tell me. I finally gave in and let him come over. We talked for a while and he told me about how God had shown him me in the future and I was his wife. Something happened in his time with the Lord that changed his heart completely and he could finally see me. He said he knew that he knew that he knew I was meant to be his wife. That's what I had been waiting for for so long. God could only move in his heart when I finally stepped out of the way. He finally heard God because I stopped talking.
Ten weeks later we were married.
