I’m having a hard day.  I can feel another wave of grief crashing.  It’s weird…I can usually feel them coming and I started feeling it yesterday.  The first couple weeks after Josiah went to heaven, I felt pretty numb, but now even though the hurt is always there, grief will come on like…well, like waves…just like everyone said they would.  This onslaught leaves me feeling so drained and exhausted.  Just staying at home is the easiest thing for me…but life doesn’t always allow that.  Tonight, I needed to run an errand after the kids woke up from their naps.  Even though I just wanted to stay home and just be sad…I needed to go out.  By the time we were all ready to head out the door, it was supper time.  I knew I had a gift card to Wendy’s, so I told the kids we would go there after we were done with our errand.  As we were walking into Wendy’s the thought just hit me like a ton of bricks, we were not just having a fun outing with Mommy, we were out as a “family”….our new family…just three of us…a widow and her two fatherless children.  I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to make it through the meal…but I forged ahead.  This was something that I needed to face…there seems to be an endless amount of things to face these days.  Anyway, I got the kids in, we ordered, and I was getting our drinks when a man came up and offered to carry my tray to our table.  This man must have seen the mother-bear look on my face, because he quickly explained who he was.  As it turns out, I had actually met his wife before, but I had never met him, and they had been reading my blog.  His offer meant so much to me.  I walked into that restaurant wanting what I could not have (my husband and our intact family), but what I needed was just an extra pair of hands and more importantly, the reminder that God could see my hurt and my need and that He would meet me there.  It was also such a reminder that I need to be willing to act when the Spirit prompts me and not quench it….because maybe that person needs more than just a helping hand…maybe they need a reminder of God’s love for them.

Anyway, I made it through the rest of the meal.  The kids had a great time.  They have rarely been to a fast-food restaurant so it was a treat to them.  Ava even thanked me later for taking her to Wendy’s and told me she had “so much fun”.  I’m glad.  My loneliness for my Love envelopes me, but thanks to the kindness of a stranger…I feel God’s love surrounding me tonight…and it is enough.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I thought I would share a shortened version of our love story.  Some of you are probably familiar with it already, but I’m sure most of you are not.  So…here it is:

Josiah and I met in grade school.  We pretty much ignored each other until high school.  At that time, I was good friends with Josiah’s sister and he was good friends with my older brother, so we would all hang out together (plus one of our other friends).  Anyway, we were strictly friends…or so I thought.  Josiah never did pin-point exactly when he started being interested in being more than friends, but the winter after I graduated from high school, God really placed me on Josiah’s heart and he started praying…and fasting.  He called my dad and set up a time to meet with him.  In that meeting Josiah asked my dad for permission to try to win my heart.  My parents prayed about it…then they came to me and asked me to pray about it.  You have to understand, this totally caught me off guard.  I was not interested.  I never had been.  Josiah was my brother’s friend.  Plus, I was not looking for a relationship.  But, over the next few weeks (yes, I made Josiah wait a while…poor guy!), God softened my heart and made it clear that this was His plan…even if it wasn’t mine.  Maybe that sounds “unromantic”…but I think it’s the most romantic thing ever to be able to truly say that God wrote our love story.

We had some great times while we dated…but we both probably put too much pressure on ourselves.  We both desired to be pure…in heart as well as body.  Neither of us had ever dated anyone else…so we were newbies.  We took our physical relationship very slowly…and I don’t regret that at all.  We really got to know each other first.  Josiah even took it so far as he didn’t want us to pray together at first.  He felt very strongly that he didn’t want to “use” prayer to form an attachment.  Because it can be a very emotional thing to pray together when you are in that kind of relationship.  I didn’t totally understand his reasons at the time (although I went along with it), but now I see the wisdom of that decision.  Praying with him was unlike anything I had every experienced.  It’s a unique and special bond and I’m glad we waited for that.

Josiah asked me to be his wife on March 17, 2004…a little over a year after we started dating.  We were in Colorado on vacation with his family and he got down on one knee with the Rocky mountains in the background.  There is, of course, a longer story…but be assured, he did it right 🙂  Oh yeah, and I said yes of course!

We said “I do” on November 20, 2004.  It was a beautiful day and I just remember feeling like I was in a blissful dream.  Josiah made me feel so beautiful…but he made me feel like that every day.  I can honestly say that we both enjoyed marriage so much more than dating.  We had so much fun together!  I remember thinking that I completely loved him when we got married…but then marveling at how much deeper our love grew with time.  I really feel like we packed a lifetime of memories and growth into five years, two months, and fourteen days.  We truly did become one.

Now, were we a perfect couple and did we have a perfect marriage?  No.  We had our fair share of ups and downs.  For one thing, having a child with the challenges that Ava had, was hard on us.  We had only been married a little over a year and while walking through that did make our relationship stronger in the long run, we definitely had difficulties that took time to work through.  But, I have no regrets.  We needed those hard times to help us grow.

So…that’s my love story…well, at least part of it.  Everyone has a different story to tell and I love that.  God has a unique plan for each of us and He directs us in different ways…I love that too.  This is just the story He wrote for us…and I’m so glad He did.