The Proposal

My control freak and ever ready planning tendencies almost ruined another milestone blessing in my life when I sensed that my then boyfriend was getting ready to pop the question:

He proposed to me after only six months at the suggestion of my grandmother at my family reunion in Florida.  He involved my entire family in the process and had them record the entire process from different angles.  

That morning I heard on the news that statistics say that the majority of couples get engaged in December, so I made sure to paint a fresh coat of nail polish and look my best at all times.  My four siblings and I snooped as he asked my parents for my hand in marriage days earlier by the pool and I caught him whispering with family members all through out the week.  

On Christmas Eve he and my grandmother accompanied me to BJ's Wholesale to buy the ingredients for that night's celebration.  As always I was stressing and a bit overwhelmed.  He accompanied my grandmother in the jewelry section while I raced up and down the 50 aisles.  At one moment when I went to check up on them he called me over to look at some rings.  Alarm bells went off and I made it clear that I didn't want to know what my ring might look like or know when the moment would come.  He countered that he just wanted to see my taste and my grandmother literally began to pinch my ribs several times enticing me to select one.  To add a little holiday humor to the mix, the sales person could have passed off as Mrs. Kringle twinkly humor and all.  She would make several comments on how she never had seen a girl resist a ring from a boy so much in her life.  I was blocked but allowed my man to guide me through it and settled on a unique bridge ring that was WAY more elaborate than I had planned yet still had the elegant antique feel that I've always desired.  

Knowing me well and wanting to out whit me, he proposed two hours before he was to hop on a plane back home in Miami (one hour away from where I lived)!  He said that he was going to run a last minute errand with my father before the flight.  The doorbell rang and my sisters informed me that there was a package for me in my room upstairs.  Once in the room the door was closed behind me and I saw an envelope with his handwriting on the outside.  It had a symbol of a rose on the outside and the card told me to count to 30 remembering our roller-coaster of a relationship.  Of corse I couldn't wait and rushed out the door to find that a path of rose petals had magically appeared!!!

I followed the beautiful path and even caught a glimpse of my brother scattering them outside towards  the canal in the back of my house!  The path lead me to an inflatable boat that he and I had searched five stores for, I believing that I was meant for his cousin!  Inside the boat I recovered another envelope with a tiny boat drawn on it.  The card said some beautiful things and that I was to row to my destiny.

That was NOT going to happen!!!! First, it was illegal to go into that canal. Second, the canal was four feet steep from the ledge, and last, it was freezing!!!  So I hoped into my Prius with my youngest sister recording the entire time and drove around till I saw my other sisters car in front of the communities park.  

There was a giant Fedex (his nick name) box in front of the lake's fountain.  As I approached he popped out startling me!!! He handed me a bouquet of roses and red present.  Inside the present was another envelope with a ring drawn on the outside.  Inside, his love letter recapped our story and in the end asked for me to say the words he longed to hear.  He then dropped to one knee and asked for me to marry him.  I just kept on laughing and finally said YES!

We then picked up his luggages and drove to Miami and had emotional parting straight out of a movie! 

The Love of My Life

This is the LOVE of my life!  If you have read my previous entry you would have noted that we had a somewhat scary start.  Our relationship seemed to be star-crossed before it even began!  My rules and plans were thrown out the window the moment he stepped through the door to my heart and I let go trusting that God will guid us forward.  With every fiber of my being I believed that the Lord would transform that lost boy into a wise and gentle leader who would surpass me spiritually and guide our relationship.  I believe that my faith, his enormous heart and and our lack of doubt was the reason for how quickly the process unraveled!

The first thing I did before I accepted to be his girlfriend was place the condition that he had to ask my family's permission.  It was a risk to take with this notorious bad boy who refused to date a girl from church because of his lack of commitment; but it was the most important decision that I would make (that any serious girl should make) at the first bloom of our relationship.  If a guy knows that you are loved, valued and protected he will respect his commitment to you ten times more than if you were on your own.

I don't believe that we would have made it if we weren't under the caring and watchful eye of my family.   We were arguing all the time! Heavy phone calls, dramatic text messages and plenty of standoffs.  He had a hard time letting go of his past and assimilating to christian lifestyle.  I was inexperienced, impatient and naive to gently guiding a man. Our family held us together through the rough beginning until our love blossomed enough to face the storms on our own.

This man matured quickly and would be there through the diagnosis and treatment of my benign tumor, the deaths of the two people that I loved most in this world, my grandparents whom I lived with and tended to for years.  I had always prayed to the Lord that I would not be alone when that time came.  My grandparents had a great love & enormous faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Their love was so exceptional that they died just a few months apart.

In a little less than two years we were married!  We both had the same luck.  He was carless at the same times that I would be.  We both went back to college that the same time, jobless at the same time and started our current employment at the same time (days after our wedding).  It was our God that blessed us so that we were able to strengthen our character and mature together!

Right now my husband is the industrial engineer, along side of a handful of doctors, handling this country's largest hospital receive American and international accreditation.  He works twelve minutes away from our apartment and we live three minutes away from our church!

This man is my best friend, my lover, my leader, my comfort, my guardian, my nutritionist, my psychologist, my inspiration, my everything!!!

                                                   

THE FOLLOWING IS MY LAST ENTRY INTO A VIRTUAL DIARY THAT I KEPT IN 2011

(when I was a naive & innocent girl in every sense of the word not knowing that the choice I was going to make would change my life forever)  

I have always believed that a kiss is extremely special and should not be given away so easily.  This weekend helped me understand that in a way more profoundly than I ever felt before.

      So I met this guy.  I wasn't expecting it.  He's the perfect example of the "bad boy" with the heart of an angel.  Yet he barely met my "3 Requierments."  Yes he is a Christian, but he isn't faithful, He's barely a couple inches taller than me, and he doesn't have a job that combined with the previous two lost a bit of my respect.  But for the first time in my life the last two don't mean that much to me.  Yet his lifestyle is so wrong in so many ways and that scares me.

     Everyone, and I mean everyone, has told me to give him a chance.  That he is a really good guy, that not only does he have the looks, the body, but the family too.  He had been after me for months but I resisted and held firm to the rules that had protected me from heart brake. So when I finally did give him a chance, my walls went crashing down and KABOOM!!!   He set me and my world on fire!  I have never met someone who balanced yet mirrored/contrasted me so intensely!  I mean intense in every sense of the word!

    But everything is against us.  His past, his present, my future, my reputation.  With brutal humble honesty, declared how much he admired and desired me.  How he would never dare or risk hurting me.  I had to make him stop! His charm, honesty, and sensuality were too much!  Then he warned me how things weren't going to be easy or smooth with him, but that he desperately wanted to make things work out.

    Our attraction is so potent and at times overwhelming.  But I refuse to make the same mistakes that I have in the past and cross the boundries that the Lord has set for me.  He says that he wants to change and commit, but in his case its not going to be an easy road for there's soooo much he has to sacrifice.  Even though he is honestly desires to change, he isn't doing much to even try.

    So to be with him I will have to sacrifice some of my core principles and even though I'm tempted, I refuse to do so.  I will have to walk away from the man that I have waited so long for.  He is attentive, he caresses you with compliments, he's observant, surprisingly smart, I could go on.

    I also feel as if the Lord has sent this ideal man with mayor flaws.  I have devised a plan that might give us a chance.  It will give us the opportunity to bond and grow and it just might be the answer that were looking for.  Only God knows.