The long wait during Christmas

Ten years ago. TEN! Christmas was coming. The school year was wrapping up. Surprisingly, I had just found out that this friend of mine had a terribly powerful crush on me. Never had someone of such high caliber been so interested in me. Sensing opportunity, I decided to pursue her.

We talked.....and talked.....and talked. I found her to be a scintillating conversationalist. She was a long-term relationship person. Two relationships, multiple years in length. I was a short-term relationship person. My longest relationship with a girl up to that point had been nine months (of which, during the middle three, she was out of the country). None of the others lasted more than three months.

So we talked about foundation building. We talked about waiting until after the break to see if God was speaking to us. Waiting to see where our hearts would lead us. I knew potential when I saw it. Long-lasting relationships are equal parts pursuit and reflection. The reflection is the mental building of a forward base as in a war.

Several factors were weighing on me. Three prophecies in my life were showing signs of coming to fulfillment. I had hidden these prophecies in the secret place of my heart that I might know the signs. I use the term prophecy loosely here. In this story, it means something in the past that spoke toward the future.

The first prophecy was a prayer I prayed when I was 13. I prayed that after certain events happen in my life, that God would introduce me to my wife. Well, those events had recently come to conclusion the previous summer. I met Hanna one week after.

The second prophecy was from a friend of mine. I was the best man at his wedding and I was depressed in the months heading up to it. He was younger than me and was getting married. To comfort me, he told me that by the time he got married, I would have met my wife. For some reason, I kind of believed him. Also, I wanted to see if he was right or wrong.

The third prophecy came from me as well. A couple of Valentine's Days prior, I sat in my room for the second year in a row suffering emotionally from a breakup with a girl. As I sat there in my room feeling miserable, I prayed to God that, since I had never had someone to cherish over the romantic holiday, I would spend every single V-day with only one girl.

All of these weighed heavily upon my decision-making process. This particular Christmas season was the longest in my life. Every day seemed to drag in perpetuity. Over the years I learned that I give my heart out too quickly. So I set about to guard myself from future pain. All of these things formed together to create the mental equivalent to cement. With the just right concoction, I found that it could be formed into a solid, long-term foundation.

Ten years ago, it seemed that every aspect of my life was leading up to Hanna. Yet we waited. We prayed, separately. We reflected on our friendship and tested it to see if it could hold the weight of romance.