Our Story (part two)

As I shared in Part One, Craig and I had courted in 2009--I was 20, he was 19. 
We met on my first mission trip to Mexico--he had been a few times before, once for 3 months at a time.  A dear family friend was the team leader, and when inviting me to join the team, he had hoped Craig and I would hit-it-off (his wife was also co-matchmaker).
While in Mexico, Craig preached at one of the churches we visited; I remember having a "feeling/voice" tell me that this was the man I was going to marry.  Thinking I was just insane, I brushed it off.  After we were back in the U.S., while I gave a presentation of the trip to our supporting church and while Craig was also on stage with the rest of our team, Sarah at skimming proverbs (Craig's sis-in-law) sent him a text saying, "how are you NOT supposed to marry her?". :)

A couple months later, he finally contacted me and asked my Dad to officially court me.  Though it was the best relationship ever, and though he met all my hopes and expectations I had for husband-material (I thought he was Mr. Darcy incarnate), we found that we had differing theologies and thought it best to end the courtship.  But in all honesty, I wasn't sure where I stood theologically at that point in my life, and I was more scared than anything.  But God knew His own timing. :)

Since I began another relationship a few months later, and Craig soon moved an hour away, and other than rarely running into each other at Church functions, Craig and I didn't keep in contact.

Skip ahead 2 years...

In June of 2010, I was far from thinking about relationships and marriage.  Still recovering from the aforementioned relationship fail, I was getting ready to leave for a mission trip to Kenya.  This was BIG to me, since foreign mission work was dear to my heart, and God had used trips like this as milestones of spiritual growth for me before.  My prayer was that I would bury my relationship/idolotry weariness in Kenya, come home refreshed and renewed-in-love with my Abba again.  Praise God, He answered that prayer.  When holding former street girls like Martha, little Sarah and Esther (above LtoR), ALOT of things melt in the goodness of God.

After I was home from the trip, I got a random text from Craig asking if I would like to join him for a Mark Schultz concert on June 17th.  Later, he told me he had the tickets, but the friends he'd previously asked declined.  He had gone through his phone contacts to see who to ask next when he saw my name and thought it would be nice to catch up and hear of Kenya (since he is a lover of foreign missions himself).  He was surprised when I accepted!  I simply thought it would be nice to catch up as well, and didn't expect anything of it.  In fact, I told myself over-and-over again that I would be stupid to fall for this guy and commanded myself to not even go there.  I planned to stick to my guns.

Heh heh...oops! :)

...to be continued, again, verra verra soon. :)