Children of The Church: Our Engagement

This day was 9 years ago today! The day that Eric asked me to spend the rest of my life with him as his wife! Eric and I met in the fall of 2003 when we were both attending Creighton University. We were both in different relationships when we met, and were involved in the same activities at school. The next summer we started dating and were having a great time, until a few months later I decided I needed a little space. My previous relationship had been a very serious one and I knew I needed some perspective of what I was really looking for in a spouse, and it was difficult to do that while in a relationship.

Then I made this list (yes, I still have it saved on my computer from almost 10 years ago!)

What I am looking for in my future spouse:

Someone who I can share and grow in my faith with.
Someone who can help me inform and guide our children into a future grounded in a faith in God.

Someone who values family.

Someone to understand me, what I stand for, and who I am becoming each and every day.

Someone who respects me and the choices that I make.

Someone to be my best friend, though good and bad times.

Someone to talk to and someone who will listen.

Someone who will comfort me and understand my emotional needs

Someone who will show their love and commitment to me in a daily manner

Someone who helps open my eyes to the truth which can be found

Someone who is intelligent and can carry intelligent conversations

Someone who can make me laugh and who I can have fun with

Someone who makes me forget about all other things and who I can be myself around.

Someone who is honest and faithful

Someone passionate about their career, faith, and about me

Someone who’s life I change by being a part of it, who I make a better person because of my relationship with him and who makes me a better person by his relationship with me.

Someone who makes me and our relationship a priority in their life and can put other things aside to make time for me (and is happy doing so).

Some of these things make me laugh now, but I enjoy seeing how I thought at that point in time in my life. Anyway, so going through this list, even though Eric and I were not together at the time I made it, I realized that it was HIM who fit that list of what I was looking for. We started really talking again over that Christmas break in 2004 and started having very serious conversations. I remember sitting at a coffee shop discussing that if we had any intention to enter a relationship again that it was only to seriously determine if marriage was right for us. I never thought about it as "courting" at that time, but looking back I really was done with dating with no purpose. We both agreed that we could see our relationship leading to marriage and so we started a committed relationship in the early spring of 2005.

Well, I think being able to have those big conversations and being honest with our intentions really helped us, because at that time things progressed very quickly. I really felt after that date at the coffee shop that he was the person that God was calling me to marry. That next fall we went on an Encounter retreat at Creighton University's beautiful retreat center. It was an amazing retreat for us both spiritually, individually, and in our relationship. It was at this retreat that I think we both knew that an engagement was coming soon (little did I know that he already had bought a ring!).

Look how excited he was! He picked out my ring with my best friend!

At the Encounter Retreat - Fall 2005

We got back from the retreat and I think it was that week that he drove to see my parents and ask their permission to marry me. They, being my parents, involved him in a conversation about his intentions and plans for the future and then gave him their best. He proposed to me that next week. It was nothing fancy or showy, but that's not who we are. It was a beautiful, honest, heartfelt proposal on the side of the street after a romantic dinner. Never could I have guessed that night at how our life has unfolded over the past 9 years. There have been beautiful moments bringing our three sons into this world, successes, achievements and lots of love. There has also been pain, hurt, trials and tribulations, but with the grace of God we keep going. I feel so privileged that this is the partner that God called for me to build a life with and help to get me to heaven.