How are you liking this 14 Days of Love series so far? Me, I'm crazy about it. Today's post is from Jennifer, a blogger on staff with Cru and living in Indiana with her husband and adorable dog, Stella. Enjoy!
I was never the girl to always have a boyfriend. Most of the weddings I've been to, I went stag. I remember crying, sobbing the night my best friend, Tammy, got married, thinking it would never happen for me.
Singleness was really hard for me. I knew I wanted to wait for the right man, but it killed me to not know how long that wait would be. I prayed night after night that God would bring my future husband into my life. But in the back of my mind, I also found it really hard to believe it would really happen for me.
I realized I had two options: trust God and His timing, or fall deeper and deeper into despair over something that could be right around the corner. I chose hope. I decided I needed to stop looking for "him," and begin focusing my time and energy on other things that I enjoyed. So I became a Zumba instructor. I spent quality time with some of my best girlfriends. I let Jesus love on me in the sweetest ways. I asked God to bring my future husband in a way I least expected. Keep him off my radar until he was staring me straight in the face. Let him have the "love at first sight" experience, not me. (I really did pray that...don't laugh...)
And then one night a guy from my church, who I hardly knew, asked me if I wanted to go see the movie "Moneyball" with him the next night. He had scored pre-screen tickets, and the movie wasn't hitting theaters until the following weekend. Since I had made a decision to not really focus on boys, I was very hesitant at first. But with the encouragement of friends I trusted, I decided to go..."just as friends" of course.
What I didn't know that night was something happened a few months earlier, when I went to our church for the first time. I moved to Indiana to join a ministry called Campus Crusade for Christ, and was invited up on stage at a church to share more about my ministry. That same guy just happened to be in the congregation that night, and turned to the person next to him and said, "I could marry that girl." No. joke.
Now, almost three years later, there are still days when I can hardly believe I'm really married. I really did believe I was going to be single for life. I feel so incredibly loved by Stuart, and so special that he chose me to be his bride. But above that, I feel even more loved by Jesus because He's the one who sent me Stuart. Jesus knew all along that I needed to figure myself out, stop focusing on what I didn't have, and realize how much HE loved me, before I would be ready for a man to love me. Because as much as Stuart loves me, and I'm still in awe every day at how much that is, Jesus will always love me more. And that's a love story I never want to forget.
(All pictures are from Facebook. Engagement and wedding pictures by Jennifer Baumann Photography.)
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