It has been a little over a year that I started this blog. Yes, I know that I haven’t been as faithful in attending to it as I should be but sometimes you have to live life rather than just write about it. I am very happy to say that I have been joyfully living my life.
One year ago, I was in a good place, or so I thought. I was into my first semester in grad school, was a graduate assistant, volunteering at a library, making new friends and falling deeply into infatuation with one of my close guy friends. A guy friend who I truly believed was the one who was supposed to be my soulmate. One year ago, I was very unhealthy, very overweight, and didn’t really care about changing that. One year ago, I was still trying to discover myself, trying to figure out my life, trying to ignore the whispers of fear that lingered in my ears.
Spring 2009 was a defining time of my life. Reading over those posts I can clearly see that. But the most defining moment came on May 17/May 18 in the form of the worst heartbreak I have ever experienced. One minute the world is right side up and the next you have collapsed into a pile of pain on the wet, grassy knoll outside of your car. One minute your stomach is knotting from excitement, the next minute you feel like vomiting. It is the type of pain that I would never wish on even my most despised enemy. It is made worse when the person who is breaking your heart is calmly proclaiming that “this will all make sense in the future” and “the ONE is right around the corner, Jessica. Just be patient.” It’s impossible to believe that person and all you want to do is curl up and die.
The summer was a refining period of my life. After my time rolling in my grief and despair, I got up, wiped my nose and determined to move forward in my life sans love, relationship, or anything that contained a Y chromosome. Even though I flirted with some possibilities my heart was just cold to the idea of trusting anyone ever again.
Instead, I poured myself into getting in shape, becoming healthy and losing weight. Though I am about fifteen pounds from my goal weight, I am proud to say that I have regained control of my health, lowered my blood pressure, increased my water intake and exercising, and look better then I did a year ago. I also spent time cultivating my friendships and my mind by reading and watching TV shows (for me that is cultivating my mind because I love to think about the TV stuff I watch) I even travelled with some of my close friends, took my first airplane/helicopter and segue ride, and saw the Washington Monument along with other awesome D.C. stuff. For the first time in my life, I spent a weekend at the lake, I water-tubed, I drank wine along side the lake, it was beautiful. I started working again at the library and even though I hated classes, I determined to train myself in my profession. God and I had reconnected and I felt content with how He was guiding my life.
I was happy. I was content. My friends were fantastic. God was good. But I was lonely. I admitted it to God and I know that He understands. It isn’t a sin to want a romantic companion. I knew that there was a vital part of my life missing.
My social circle was becoming increasingly small and my choices for male romantic companionship was even more limited. After spending a day with a close guy friend who was in a very serious relationship while I spent the rest of the day texting my equally unavailable friend, I realized something. If I wanted a relationship, it wasn’t going to come from within my circle of friends. So led by some outside force (I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was God,) I signed up for an online dating site.
Once upon a time, I would have been embarrassed to admit this. But you know what, this is my story and I can only say what God wanted me to do. He wanted me to join that site, on that specific date and for a specific reason.
I didn’t really expect much. For a couple of weeks, I chatted and talked with this one guy but I didn’t feel any connection or attraction. There were plenty of guys who contacted me but there was just something that didn’t feel right.
I started going to a new church at this time and joined the singles group, hoping that I would have more option there (don’t worry, that’s NOT the only reason I went there) but if I was going to get serious about getting married then I wanted to be in an environment that offered SOME options instead of a setting that had absolutely none. But there was just something off-putting about all of these “super” Christians. The fakeness and “smily” nature of many of the men in that group just made me nauseous. But I tried to convince myself that was the type of guy I wanted but deep down I knew that wasn’t what I needed.
Fast forward to September 24th. I was still on that dating site but after dead-ends and just “eh” matches, I was close to deleting my profile and focus on school and my future move to Washington D.C. (yeah, I dream big.) But there was something inside of my head that whispered to me “Just give it one more shot. See if there are any guys out there that you would be interested in.” So I just went through a list of guys that I thought were attractive (tall, brown hair, glasses) and listed their religious views as Christian. Without registering who I was “winking” at, I clicked on this one guy’s profile. At the time, it kinda of stood out to me but it wasn’t like the “look across a crowded ball-room” type of attention. I just thought “hey, this guy wears glasses, is tall and says he is a Christian. I’ll wink at him.” So I did.
Nothing happened. From any of the fifty or so guys that I winked at. Nothing.
For the next two to three weeks, I was tempted to delete my account. Everyday I felt something telling me no, that I should wait.
October 15th…my life changed. Everything I ever I wanted met everything I ever needed in one man. His name was Steven.
To be continued….
