bekahcubed

This is the next installment in a rather long series about how Daniel and I met–and have become engaged. Click on the “Our Story” tag for context.

Not long after we’d officially decided we were dating, we started praying together during our daily conversations.

After we’d already begun, one of Daniel’s friends had cautioned against the intimacy praying together can create.

My mentor was thrilled to hear of Daniel’s leadership in prayer, and warned of how spiritual intimacy was, well, intimate.

We certainly found it to be intimate. We were opening our souls to God together, lifting up our desires, our requests, our hurts, and our praise. This was deep intimacy.

We weren’t about to stop.

Our prayers took different directions from day to day. Sometimes we prayed for the circumstances of our lives. Sometimes we prayed for the people in our lives. Sometimes we prayed for one another. Sometimes we each prayed for ourselves. Frequently, we thanked God for the gift of His Son. Almost as frequently, we thanked God for the gift of each other.

But one refrain found its way into almost every prayer.

“Lord, we want to be married someday–but if that’s not Your will, we don’t want it.”

“Lord, I love this man, and I want to spend the rest of my life with him–but if that’s not what You want, show us.”

“Lord, You know I love Rebekah and want to marry her–but I want Your will to be done.”

“Lord, if I don’t marry Daniel, I’ll be very, very sad–but I’d rather obey You than have him.”

It was our heart’s cry, our desire laid bare before the Lord. Both of us were prone to make marriage an idol, to worship our desire for a spouse above God. Both of us recognized the danger of idolizing one another.

We wanted each other–and we told God that–but we wanted God more.

Our desire was to be married–but we wanted above anything to honor God.

And so we prayed day after day.

I talked with Cathy, week after week, confessing how much I thought I was in love with Daniel, how much I wanted to be his wife, how he wanted me for his wife. I shared how I struggled to know whether this desire was holy or idolatrous. I wanted God more. As painful as it would be to not marry Daniel, that’s what I wanted if that’s what God wanted. Cathy and I prayed together, week after week.

And Daniel and I continued to pray during our daily conversations.

“Lord, we want to be married–but if you don’t want that, neither do we.”

We continued to pray it day after day until one day, when Daniel said the words that changed the tenor of our conversations.

I was wearing my red satiny pajamas laying across the white comforter of my hotel bed, chin propped on a pillow, Nexus tablet propped on a second pillow in front of me. The light above my head cast a ghastly pallor across my face, such that I winced whenever I saw the tiny box that was me in the corner of the screen. It wasn’t one of my best days.

Then Daniel said it: “Maybe we should stop talking about getting married.”

This is the next installment in a rather long series about how Daniel and I met–and have become engaged. Click on the “Our Story” tag for context.

We spent the next morning with Dave and Katie and their kids.

Well, mostly with their kids.

Daniel’s nephew took Daniel’s lap and his oldest niece (who had gotten over her shyness of me) took mine. E read to Daniel from his books–and P, not to be outdone, went to find some books of her own. P and I “read” her counting books a half a dozen times, counting up from one to twelve and back down again.

E moved on to a movie, his one allowed that week–but P still wanted to play. This time, she wanted both Uncle Daniel and his friend Rebekah to play with her. She handed us each a number of magnets and instructed us to place the magnets, one at a time on a magnetic board.

Daniel and I shared bemused glances as P directed the game of her own making.

“Now your turn.”

“Now your turn.”

“Now it’s my turn.”

“No, put that one on.”

“Now you put that one on.”

Eventually, P tired of her play and moved on to other things–taking pictures with her Mom’s cell phone. She got plenty of shots of the room at large, but eventually her attention turned to the two still sitting on the couch.

At length, we left for lunch. Daniel would take me from there to the airport.

As I transferred my luggage from my car to Daniel’s and rearranged this item and that inside my bags, Daniel asked if I had room for this.

This was his brand new tablet-a Galaxy Nexus 7.

“Because I want to Skype with you while you’re away,” he explained. “You can give it back to me next week when I come up to Columbus.”

I tucked it into my purse, a little embarrassed at the gesture (and a little unsure of what flying with not one, not two, not three but FOUR electronic devices would be like–I had both my cell phone, my Kindle, and my work laptop with me, in addition to the tablet.)

We went to lunch, and then to the airport. Daniel carried my luggage and waved goodbye.

And then I was off to Philadelphia.

This is the next installment in a rather long series about how Daniel and I met–and have become engaged. Click on the “Our Story” tag for context.

My professional conference was in Philadelphia the second week in October–and I knew I needed to attend in order to get those all-important CEUs.

Unfortunately, I’d been so busy, I waited until the last minute (maybe a month before?) to register and get my plane tickets. Once I got to searching for my tickets, I realized that I was in trouble.

The plane tickets out of Lincoln and/or Omaha were exorbitant.

I began to despair. How much was I willing to spend for this conference?

Before I plunked down my cash, I figured I’d check into the flights out of Kansas City–the nearest major-ish airport.

Good news. I could get tickets to Philadelphia several hundred dollars cheaper coming from Kansas City.

The thought crossed my mind that maybe I could see if Daniel would be willing to meet me in Kansas City before I left–but I wasn’t really sure if it would work. If we did that, I’d have to go early, stay the night at a hotel, and burn my cost savings.

I mentioned the idea to my sister, who had a solution right off. “Just call Katie and see if you can stay the night with them.” I was reticent. Yes, I’d known Daniel’s sister-in-law in high school–but we hadn’t really kept up since then–and it seemed wrong somehow, like I would be using her.

I recounted this to Daniel in one of our evening conversations–and ended up with an unexpected solution. “Well, then, I’ll just ask my brother if you can stay with them.”

The plans were made.

I would travel to KC, spend the day with Daniel, stay overnight with Daniel’s brother and his family, and fly out the next day.

And that’s what we did.

After introducing me to Daniel’s nephew and nieces (one of whom was more than a little shy about me at first), we took off for an afternoon and evening in KC. Daniel took me to the World War I museum. This time, it was my opportunity to be interested because of the company rather than the content, per se (not that there wasn’t some interesting stuff at the museum, because there definitely was.)

Up until the last minute, we still wondered if we might be able to make dinner for Daniel’s brother and his family–but Katie and the kids decided to go to a birthday party they’d been invited to but weren’t really sure about, so Daniel and I ended up going out.

That evening, we sat and talked with Dave and Katie. Katie and I caught up a bit; we all talked a little about life, mostly shooting the breeze. Katie shooed the boys upstairs to give me the dirt on the Garcia family (chief among it? that people will think you’re Hispanic).

Daniel had to be at his uncle’s by ten or risk not getting a bed, so we said an early-ish goodnight and Daniel left.