Completing Him Summer Challenge: The Dating Days

For this week's challenge we are going back to where it all began.  Our dating days.  This is the first challenge in the Completing Him Summer Challenge being hosted by Courtney over at Women Living Well.

Harold and I met when I decided to get into his mother's car to talk to her at a Koinonia event.  I had never met him before but we soon realized we had a lot in common.  His mom and another friend were coming over to my house that night as Harold needed his mom's car for the next day.  He says we can thank his love of football and the Buffalo Bills for our meeting.  Anyway, we spent some time together at the Koinonia meeting and then I followed them until we got to a place that was familiar to him so he could take his mom's car while she came with me.  I remember wondering if there were any future possibilities, but figured he wouldn't be interested.  I later found out that his birthday was coming up.  So I emailed his mother and asked her to tell him Happy Birthday for me.  Still too chicken to contact him myself.  I was ecstatic when he emailed me back.  And we exchanged emails for a while, getting to know each other better.  I was nervous about letting my older children know I was interested in another man, even though their dad had left me several years earlier and was remarried.  I wasn't sure how they would deal with it.  I had met some of his children when we went to the Family Life Network's fall sharathon.  We actually had been emailing for almost a month and had just met face to face again at another Koinonia event. We decided we could get together the next day and I could meet his kids in a friendly atmosphere with his mom along.  Our first real "date" which wasn't really a date, was a trip to Wellsville to choose carpet for my son's room.  The first time he came down to my home I cooked dinner and we went out to see the third Left Behind movie that a local church was showing.  I was still hesitant to introduce him to the children. But when I told them about him Steven's response was, "Are you going to get married?"  

Anyway, we actually started spending more time on the phone in the middle of the night than on the computer.  He lived an hour away and we both worked so getting together was a little tricky.  I started going with him on Thursdays to have breakfast with his dad and then over to the auction, if I didn't have to work.   We started "hypothetically" talking about getting engaged and I don't remember when it turned into a definite.  We didn't have money for a ring at the time, but we went looking together and chose a set with crosses on them. Guess I forgot to mention the first place we went out to eat together was Ponderosa.  That is important because the day we went to pick up the rings he wouldn't let me have it right away.  He also wouldn't tell me where we were going.  He took me to the same Ponderosa we first went to.  Sometime between purchasing the rings and sitting down to eat he had palmed the ring and "surprised" me by officially proposing and putting the ring on my finger.  Of course I said yes. :)  The remainder of our dating days was filled with late night phone calls, or 1 hour trips to each others houses.  And of course, planning the wedding.

We decided it was God's design that brought us together at the right timing.  We later found out we had both been at a Koinonia Cross Walk in the past, but had never met.  

And now for the challenge from Courtney:

Consider: How much time do you spend on a daily/weekly basis cultivating your marriage now? In what ways can you regain some of what has been lost in the daily shuffle of life?

We have been married 4 years.  With daily stresses of being part of a blended family and having 3 young ones to chase after, we have definitely lost some of that spark.  I had thought I wouldn't let that happen.  Harold works night shift as a nurse, so even his days off (like today) are spent sleeping.  Most of our time together is with the children present.  So, I am embarrassed to say I haven't spent a lot of time lately cultivating this relationship.  That's why I said I feel this challenge is God's perfect timing for our relationship, once again.  Even though we can't go back to the emails and the phone calls I definitely think I need to go back to the notes I wrote to him at the beginning of our marriage.

Sorry there are no photos.