The One My Soul Loves: One Year Later

March 10th, 2013

I'm sitting on the Chancey couch in my apartment at 1AM, attempting to get back on a normal sleep schedule after only 3 hours of sleep post-night shift today.  You'd think that a mere 3 hours would have been barely enough, that my lack of sleep today would have afforded me ample opportunity to sleep tonight.  Yet here I am, clicking away at an hour when most of the world is deep in slumber.  I laid in bed for about two hours trying to sleep, and realizing it was futile, I hopped out and ran to the kitchen for Cheerios before sitting down to write this celebratory blog post.

You see, today marks one year since I said "yes" to Scott when he proposed by sunset at our favorite beach spot in Wilmington.  I'm overly sentimental about most things; if you follow me on any form of social media, you probably know this.  I overshare.  But I love finding little moments of joy in the midst of the seemingly mundane, and I absolutely love to share those moments with others.  So it should come as no surprise that I'd dedicate an entire post to celebrating one year of being engaged to the the sweetest, quirkiest boy I know.  You might remember this post from last year, written a week after we got engaged: The One My Soul Loves. I decided my one-year-later post would have the same title, but with our one-year-later updates.

I remember a lot about where I was that weekend in March last year.  One year ago from this very moment, I was lying in bed with sweet Brooklyn Stephens, chatting about life and love and dreams and Jesus on a pull-out couch in Kure Beach.  I'm pretty sure we were awake at this time, I remember chatting way past when everyone else had fallen asleep around us.  We were celebrating the oh-so-lovely Katie DiIanni (now Douglas) for her bachelorette weekend, and we had enjoyed a beautiful weekend at the beach.

I was antsy.  By March of last year, Scott and I had been dating for almost 7 years, most of those years long distance.  Our distance had grown longer when he was accepted to dental school in Indiana.  I was tired of the distance, weary from all of the airport goodbyes, and a little frustrated as I scrolled through Facebook week after week to see new pictures of engagement rings and announcements of friends getting engaged.  I was struggling to be content with where God had placed us and I was wondering what his plan was for our relationship.  We had joked when we started dating at 16 that we would probably date for 10 years before getting married (we're pretty darn close to that now, as we come up on 8 this year); but were we really going to do that? Would we just date forever and ever and finally get married when we were 40?

I read through my prayer journal the other day, the journal I kept for 2012 through some of 2013.  From about November until March, my daily prayer was for God to help me to be content with where I was and for me to not pressure Scott with moving forward in our relationship until we were ready.  I begged for this in my prayer journal.  In fact, I feel comfortable sharing this excerpt with you from the morning of March 10th, 2013.

God, thank you for Scott and his safety this week in getting home.  Keep him safe this week and help him to experience rest and peace.  Lord, my heart is restless.  I desire to marry him so much but know if I do it on my own timing and try have control that it will be all wrong.  Help me to find comfort in you, Lord, if it is not yet our time for this.  Give me patience, Lord.  Help me to wait on you and on him.  I trust you, God, and I trust your timing and plan.  I know that you are good.  I know that Scott has my best interests in mind and that he loves me.  Help me to find rest and peace in that, Lord.  I love you and pray for your grace, Father.  

Hours later, Scott was before me on one knee asking me to marry him.  That night, as I tried to fall asleep, I wrote another entry in my prayer journal, dated "March 10th, again."

Lord, thank you for today and for the outpouring of love we have received.  Thank you for our families and the joy there is in this day.  God, bless our marriage and bless our decisions we make as we go through this process.  Make this Your's, and not our's.  

I hope I keep this prayer journal forever.  I hope I can show it to our children and grandchildren someday.  I read it, and all I can think is "great is Thy faithfulness."

My word that I chose at the beginning of 2014 was present.  I think part of why I chose this word was because I was able to remember back to last year before we were engaged, and I remember how miserable I was always living for what was to come.  I think we are called to this, in some ways, to live in expectation of what is coming.  But it can become consuming, overpowering, parasitic, and that's when it becomes a dangerous way to live.  I decided that I was going to focus on living in the present this year, and I have been immeasurably blessed by this decision so far.

If you had told me a year ago (pre-engagement, while I was lying on the pull-out with Brooklyn) that by March of 2014 I'd be sitting on the Chancey couch in my downtown Indianapolis apartment at 1AM writing a blog post about my wedding that was to take place the following month,  I would have said that you were a mean joker and that I did not appreciate those lies that you were telling.  Yet here I am. Great is Thy faithfulness.  I'm a registered nurse in this state; I pay bills here and drive down the crazy one way streets and shop at hood Kroger and can tell you where all of the malls are within a 20 mile radius.  And I'm content.  I'm not in a rush for the wedding to get here, and I'm not in a hurry to figure out what the next life adventure is once we are married.  I'm not in a hurry to buy a home or figure out where we'll be when Scott finishes dental school or adopt a puppy or anything at all.  For once in my life, I am just waking up and living the day before me without wishing it away.  As one of my favorite authors, Shauna Niequist says, "live the life in front of you, no matter how tempting it is to press your face against the glass of other people's lives." Beware of social media and how it will propel you out of living in the present.  It's so important to be intentional about the day before you and the life that each day brings.

I think I'm running out of random thoughts to share with you, and I might even feel a little itch of sleepiness heading my way. So here's to celebrating one year later.  I will forever have the fondest memories of Scott's proposal.  I'm so thankful for the photos to remember it by because it was all a blur for me that night.  I know our wedding will be no different.  I'm looking forward to enjoying that day and cherishing it as the beginning of life together as the Davises.  I hope April 12th isn't as blurry as everyone says it will be.  I'm going to focus on each moment as it comes, to take mental snapshots of each part of the day.  And until then, I'm going to focus on preparing for our marriage.  Not for the wedding, though there are things to tie up there, too.  But I'm going to immerse myself in books that I read months and years ago about marriage.  I want to be a wife who loves her husband like Jesus would, who encourages and forgives and strengthens, and most of all, who lives with extravagant grace towards him, just as I have been shown such grace.

Grace & peace,
C.