How I Met Your Father.
One day, Lord willing, I will also tell the story of how I met Jon and how God ordered our whole lives to this point... and to our own children. Today Jon is away on business to Okinawa. We parted ways yesterday on our 6th month anniversary and it was a tear jerker for sure. But now it leaves me with some time to reflect on the last several months and quiet. Over and over people here ask us how we met and we often tell them the "short version" of the story to save time, but ultimately ours is a lifelong story which only God could orchestrate.
I grew up always knowing I wanted to make a wise decision when it came to marrying... and Jon too. We both had our needs and wants and even in print. It has been this way for me for three years. Well for the complete list it had been three years. Nevertheless, I had been working on some part of a written list for many many years before that. I can't say I didn't want to settle. I see now that most people want to. But thank God for men and women who do not settle. It's just too important a decision. Ultimately my list went like this: Christian-Protestant; PCA or reformed presbyterian; outgoing/social personality; attractive; a leader who could lead my personality; someone with similiar values of the family/family worship; music-lover; wanted many children; someone who would like to homeschool; someone without a temper; someone who was very loving; and someone who could handle conflict correctly. Jon is all of these, Praise God. But meeting and getting to know Jon was much easier a task than knowing what I needed/wanted...knowing me. Alot of people see it the other way around. They believe that meeting the guy is much harder than knowing and sticking to what you need/want. I thought so too until now looking back. These were significant and substantial values that came from many experiences and heart breaking lessons. Maybe I just have to learn the hard way, but I know of many who are taught early on what is the better ways to learn about marriage and growing up.
With each lesson came a better understanding of an important value that I would then add to my list. Of the items on my list came other subsets of needs and wants specifically related to the listed value. For example, I didn't just want a christian, but a mature christian who knows how to rightly understand and teach the Word of God in our home A mature christian meant someone who is not a heavy drinker, irresponsible person, or unknowledgable about doctrine. With each value came a part of my history, character, and experience that helped me to better define that need.
I had to grow up and ultimately to not settle. I can see where I did start to learn by teaching versus experience and that made growing up more efficient, but I did not start getting this until the last few years. It took me some time to get to that point; but was facilitated by watching healthy christian marriages and by receiving Godly mentoring from much older women. As well, I had much older men in my life who scoped out Jon to make sure he was worthy of my time. Once we found out Jon's list was so similiar to mine, then and only then did we start to consider this may be an option for dating. After that, it was a growing dating process and the ultimate decision was ours(Jon and myself)to make. It was more fun after a good bit of the hard work was done, because only then would I open my feelings to him. God was gracious at our age to not have us be in a long, drawn out relationship that would ultimately waste our time and hearts. We did make sure we were being careful to not move faster than proper and to not wait longer than necessary. It was great for us at our age. I would likely handle things different if I had been younger. Nonetheless, I guess my "How I Met Your Father" story would be comprised of all the dates, experiences, life lessons, and developments that helped me to "Meet" myself just as "Ted" on the TV show has done. I once questioned why the show was set up this way, but it is now starting to make some sense.
I grew up always knowing I wanted to make a wise decision when it came to marrying... and Jon too. We both had our needs and wants and even in print. It has been this way for me for three years. Well for the complete list it had been three years. Nevertheless, I had been working on some part of a written list for many many years before that. I can't say I didn't want to settle. I see now that most people want to. But thank God for men and women who do not settle. It's just too important a decision. Ultimately my list went like this: Christian-Protestant; PCA or reformed presbyterian; outgoing/social personality; attractive; a leader who could lead my personality; someone with similiar values of the family/family worship; music-lover; wanted many children; someone who would like to homeschool; someone without a temper; someone who was very loving; and someone who could handle conflict correctly. Jon is all of these, Praise God. But meeting and getting to know Jon was much easier a task than knowing what I needed/wanted...knowing me. Alot of people see it the other way around. They believe that meeting the guy is much harder than knowing and sticking to what you need/want. I thought so too until now looking back. These were significant and substantial values that came from many experiences and heart breaking lessons. Maybe I just have to learn the hard way, but I know of many who are taught early on what is the better ways to learn about marriage and growing up.
With each lesson came a better understanding of an important value that I would then add to my list. Of the items on my list came other subsets of needs and wants specifically related to the listed value. For example, I didn't just want a christian, but a mature christian who knows how to rightly understand and teach the Word of God in our home A mature christian meant someone who is not a heavy drinker, irresponsible person, or unknowledgable about doctrine. With each value came a part of my history, character, and experience that helped me to better define that need.
I had to grow up and ultimately to not settle. I can see where I did start to learn by teaching versus experience and that made growing up more efficient, but I did not start getting this until the last few years. It took me some time to get to that point; but was facilitated by watching healthy christian marriages and by receiving Godly mentoring from much older women. As well, I had much older men in my life who scoped out Jon to make sure he was worthy of my time. Once we found out Jon's list was so similiar to mine, then and only then did we start to consider this may be an option for dating. After that, it was a growing dating process and the ultimate decision was ours(Jon and myself)to make. It was more fun after a good bit of the hard work was done, because only then would I open my feelings to him. God was gracious at our age to not have us be in a long, drawn out relationship that would ultimately waste our time and hearts. We did make sure we were being careful to not move faster than proper and to not wait longer than necessary. It was great for us at our age. I would likely handle things different if I had been younger. Nonetheless, I guess my "How I Met Your Father" story would be comprised of all the dates, experiences, life lessons, and developments that helped me to "Meet" myself just as "Ted" on the TV show has done. I once questioned why the show was set up this way, but it is now starting to make some sense.
posted by Amy at 1:15 PM
