Thursday, March 30, 2017

Engaged: The Back Story

I've been meaning to type this up on "The Knot" and where ever else it needs to be, but almost every time I sit down with my computer, I start going through all the nitty gritty details that need to be ironed out in the next *deep breath* 122 days.YIKES.

Anyways, here's our story:

I could tell you about the day of the proposal, but I've hardly gotten to talk about us this whole time, so I'm going to start a little further back.

Back in good ol' 2014. We'd met through mutual friends, he had helped my sister move across town one summer and was at a 'thank you' dinner at her house afterwards. I also was there and met him for a whole 1.5 minutes before I was off to a church meeting of some sort. But, he some how stayed showing up with my friends and our paths stayed crossed.

If you followed my blog at all in the spring/ early summer of 2014, I was a wild adventurer, saying yes to everything that sounded crazy. I was going to be moving away from my home city of 5 years and I was determined to squeeze every ounce of adventure out of the place.

Climbing trees, exploring grave yards, accidentally discovering a cult temple and attending a prophet summit, Shane was always there. He was our man that made sure we didn't get ourselves in too much trouble, but he was also climbing the same trees and getting the same awkward stares from the locals on our cult tour. (We did get a tour).

We were the bestest of all friends. Our group was perfect and I wouldn't have traded it for anything.


I was the first of our perfect group to move away. Taking a job back home, driving for my father and chasing down cattle lots and foaming pig pits and saving Iowa one manure sample at a time.

My closest friends stayed close, calling and texting me from afar... they were my life lines. My sweet encouragement, my daily manna. Shane being one of them. There were no romantic feelings, just the deepest and profound appreciation for a simple, "How was your day?" Friends.. those words are life.

Anyways.. weeks became months, and as the months came and went, and my life began down its new path. Here and there, I'd venture back to my friends in Iowa City and 
Shane and I really came to  enjoy time with each other. Our friends noticed there seem to be a little more to us than we cared to admit. We both didn't want to cross that line. Our friendship was perfect and we weren't about to ruin that on FEELINGS and things .After a couple more months, and a lot of pressure from some of our friends, I admitted in a text my feelings were a little more than just the friendzone box and Shane called me up to say he was right there with me. BUT, it didn't feel right at all.

The months I'd been away from Bible study and friends my age had taken a toll on my walk with the Lord.. my heart was just sad.. in the deepest places. I missed my friends, but I missed the Lord the most. Shane and I decided then wasn't the time and maybe we'd talk about it again in a couple months.

And that was that. After that phone call, I felt like I had just laid to rest the most wonderful friendship I'd ever had. He went off to Bible school and all communication and adventure stopped cold.
And when he came back we had one conversation that solidified my fears and all hope was put out. We weren't going to go down that road. We agreed to pull back and not cross that friend-only line if we could help it. And something in me died a little.

But the Lord had better things in store anyways. I moved to Des Moines and started a whole new life and made new friends and the Lord pursued me passionately. Which is what I needed more than anything. No one tells you that when you are thriving in ministry in college and have 100+ friends that you can hang out with all hours of any day, always have someone to sit with at church, everyone knows your name, you know every street name and short cut in town.. and then you graduate and move away.. no one tells you that it's like wiping out on concrete while rolling blading full speed. All momentum stops instantly. And that thriving, heart full-of-Jesus feeling doesn't necessarily come with you when you move away from EVERY.SINGLE.FRIEND who knew you and loved you when your heart bloomed its fullest.

Be warned, sweet college students, life is different on the other side. Not bad, just different.

ANYWAYS... I digress.

Life in Des Moines didn't fully settle down. With out a job, I was a free bird and traveled every moment I got. But in all that crazy tornado, God reached into the deepest places of my heart and made me whole again. There were no distractions and God had all of me where He wanted me. During which time I asked God, "why" a million times. He only ever answered with , "Wait."

And more months went by and somewhere in there, visiting my remaining friend back in Iowa City, our paths crossed here and we settled back into our friend group, gently. Us three original friends, who'd visited the cult during their prophet summit and hopped through barbed-wire fences and been spot lighted by Amish in a thunderstorm. And all was right in the world again.

And then some time around January of 2016, Shane and I's friendship did what it had done before.. become the best of all friendships and same passions for adventures and the Lord settled back into easy conversations and shared laughter. We also share the same love and enjoyment of a certain computer game called "Age of Empires" and would google hangout while battling civilizations and when our games would end, we'd stay chatting about everything until we'd finally realize we aught to sleep. It was a perfect friendship. He was wise and kind and easy to laugh with and talk about life.

Although, I was worried that we might end things all over again if we weren't careful. But somewhere in the back of my mind I thought, "well, there's no one in the world like Shane, and if he's not my guy, I might just never have a guy." Shane kind of set a standard for 'Godly, adventures, humorous, competent man" that had yet to be matched by any other I'd ever met.

My best friend was going to be married in June and the few months leading up to that we filled with stress at work, obligations and travel plans and no signs of stopping anywhere. Shane kept hinting here and there that we needed to "talk"... seeing as how our last "talk" ended our friendship.. I told him he'd have to wait until after my friend's wedding as I could only handle one thing at a time.

He ran off to Africa to plant churches a few weeks before my friends wedding (Go figure) and I realized in the time I couldn't communicate with him at all that I had, indeed, let my heart cross our strict 'friends-only' policy.

His brother was getting married the week before my best friend and we all headed back to good ol' Kalona to see it. And there was Shane, looking like he'd just come out of the bush in Africa (Because he did).. a member of the bridal party. My heart skipped a little seeing him in the distance and I kind of hoped my friends and I could all sneak out of the wedding before we had to socialize too much.

But, Shane caught up to us before we made it out and said, "Fern, don't leave yet, I brought you something." And he pulled me aside and pulled from his bag chocolate from Amsterdam. Because he remembered in one of our previous conversations that I had a friend in college go to Amsterdam promising to bring back chocolate and not doing so. And it wasn't even airport chocolate... he had gotten on a train, left the airport, and found a chocolate shop in Amsterdam.

Be.still. my. heart.

He didn't even explain it really.. he just.. gave it to me.

And I saw him again a week later, at my best friend's wedding. We had one final adventure with our three amigos before we hugged Anne goodbye as she took off for a job in Florida.

And there Shane and I stood, in my parking lot, me a fresh mess from saying good bye to Anne and thinking our "Talk" would be another, "Yo.. we can't even be friends ever."

We went up to my apartment, sat on my couch, and Shane took a deep breath and asked to take me on a date. I think he included in his speech that after much prayer and consideration, he'd come to the conclusion that there wasn't any other girl in the world for him. And thus started the happiest months I've lived thus far.

---Engagement story to come-----