16 years ago today

So we had a date night planned tonight because of a special showing of this movie I wanted to see - plus Steven wasn't working and his Mom was able to watch the kids (we are so blessed!), and I realized today that it was August 13th. Not only is it my dear niece's birthday (Happy 13th!) but it also is the day, 16 years ago, that Steven and I started dating. It's kind of a neat story, if you've heard it before I'm sorry, because here goes....

So we met when I was 15, almost 16, at a youth rally in Durham, NC. Steven claims he wanted to marry me the minute I turned around in the pew and said hello, and about 9 years later he did just that. We liked each other immediately, I wrote in my journal "I met a boy named Steven this weekend, he's really cute, he has dimples, and he winked at me." True story. But despite our chemistry the timing was just not right. By the time I saw him again at summer camp I had already started dating a boy from my church and dated him for the next 3 1/2 years (which did not stop Steven from calling me every 2 weeks or so, showing up unexpectedly at my dorm room, and convincing me to take a trip wtih him to Raleigh during our Freshmen year in college). High school boyfriend and I broke up right before Christmas our sophmore year, but it wasn't until the next summer that Steven and I started dating. We were 20 by this time and I had finallly starting figuring out this mysterious, cute guy that kept showing up in my life. I remember standing in a Bojangles parking lot in Boone one Spring day, telling him bye, and he looked me in the eye and said "I'm going to marry you Sallie Nash." At that point I couldn't really figure out what I wanted in life but had switched my major and transferred to Libery University after my sophmore year. Days before I was moving into my dorm room I was supposed to have LASIK (eye correction) surgery. Steven was in Charlotte, staying with his sister, but was planning on coming to see me that night after the surgery. I took the drugs but unfortunately the machine wasn't working so I had to go home disappointed and sleepy with bad eyes - not to return until after the semester was over. I took a nap and woke up to hang out with Steven, who literally made me sit on the kitchen counter to stay awake while he talked to me. He asked me if we could just date. I said yes, then handed him the book I'd been reading, "I Kissed Dating Goodbye." (I don't think he ever read it :)). He drove home in the wee hours of the morning and wrote me a sweet letter a few days later. Within a matter of weeks he had my heart, still does, and always will. 

Ironically, the movie we went to see tonight (called "Princess Cut" - buy the DVD in November when it comes out) was about a young girl in her early 20s hoping to find love. It was a sweet movie and in it she checks out the book from the library "I Kissed Dating Goodbye." I loved the story in the movie but I love our story even more because it's all ours. The good Lord is Sovereign in all He does and I love to look back and see how He was working in my life even when I was not living fully for Him, not trusting Him, and trying to go my own way. I'm so thankful for our marriage and that my husband loves the Lord and seeks to honor Him. What a blessing he is to me. 

Even though this hymn, "Immanuel's Land," is ultimately about our salvation and our blessed Savior, the words from the 2nd verse always make me think about my life thus far and feel so thankful. Here's the whole verse, I can't just share part of it.

"With mercy and with judgement, my web of time He wove, And aye the dews of sorrow, were lustered with His love. I'll bless the hand that guided, I'll bless the heart that planned, When throned where glory dwelleth, In Immanuel's land."