I had it all worked out, after a few years of feeling lost I had finally decided on a goal. I had been accepted at a college back east and actually felt empowered by my choices.... I can remember my mom asking what she could do to talk me out of it and I joked "Get orders to Alaska".... God wasn't messing around! It was definitely clear that I had strayed away from His plans for me and He was about to reign me in! I kept on course with my plans, even putting in my deposit ...and within the month, my parents had orders to Alaska and there was never any question about where I was heading next....Within 6 months I would be living in the cold north of the Alaskan frontier!
Meanwhile, already in Alaska was a wonderful man going through a terrible divorce and thus swearing off women forever! He had no idea what he was in for! :)
I knew when I went that Alaska was going to change me. You don't get that kind of life altering direction from a higher being for just anything! I didn't however know that it would only take a few short months before my life would never be the same again.... I'd actually started dating someone else but it didn't take long to see that wasn't going to last. BUT, it was him that set me up to meet Jason and he probably never even knew it! I guess I owe that guy a big thank you! He made an innocent comment something like "You're a cute girl, you should try one of those internet dating sites!" This was SOOO not something I needed to hear from a guy that had just dumped me! lol Or so I thought at the time.... :)
For some reason, that small comment haunted me, annoyed me and eventually ended up becoming a challenge for me to conquer. I did end up putting myself out there and ended up meeting some really nice guys (some of who I am still friends with today!) . Oh, and don't worry, I only dated guys that were in my Dad's realm of checking up on before I actually met them in person !! I wasn't meeting just anyone from on the internet- are you crazy?!
Well, as it so happened, Jason was having a bad night one night and just so happened on to my profile.... but he didn't think much of this arrangement and did nothing about it.... again, God had a plan. I thought that I wasn't getting any responses because I hadn't gotten any notifications for about a month. Then for some reason, I logged in to check something on my account and I actually had hundreds! Talk about an ego boost! lol I went thru the list and deleted the obvious "no" guys and wrote to just a few that seemed promising.... one of which had just come in the night before from a guy with a little boy....God had gotten us back on track! :)
We spent the next month, to the day, emailing and talking on the phone. We could talk for hours!! Actually our first phone conversation lasted for 4!! lol Which is really funny looking back, because he hates talking on the phone! Then one night, after we'd hung up the phone, I just couldn't take it any more and had to know in person how this was going to go. I called him back on a whim and we met up in town just a little while later at a coffee shop called Jitters. The rest is what they would call "history". From that day on, we were inseparable. I knew the first time I heard his voice on the phone that he was either "the one" or he was going to break my heart into a million pieces.... but I was betting on the forever option!
We got engaged and married within 7 months of that first meeting....
I am just blown away at how good God is to us. I think of the journeys that both of us took to get to the places we needed to be to meet each other and how we could have easily gone a stray. God just kept inching is back on course to finding each other and he's been guiding us together ever since.
The Eagle River Nature Center on our wedding day!
I am so lucky to have found my best friend and I hope that if you are reading this, you have found yours too... but if you haven't, don't give up and don't be afraid to keep looking if that little voice inside of you doesn't think he/she's "the one". When it's right, you just know!
Looking back, I love that we got married on New Years Eve... we get to start each new year together! :)
Our "song"
