One year

Today marks the one year anniversary of being a pair with Jacob Paurus. Wow! I can't believe it! Time sure does fly. It was exactly 5 years ago today when I arrived in Garden Valley Texas for my internship at the Honor Academy and a tall boy with glasses and a funny hair cut held the door open for me. Obviously I had no idea in that moment that this polite person would be the guy I marry!

Fast forward a few months and it's January 2007. God was really dealing with my heart about some pride issues and I finally begin to open myself up to the people around me. Within a few weeks I start to make some friends that would have major impact on my life. Some of these girls were very good friends with Jake. I started to hang out with his family core a lot (a family core is an Honor Academy term. The best way to describe it is a group of guys and girls that do a lot of organized fun things together). One of the girls that I was friends with would often talk about how impressed she was with Jake. She kept saying how much he had grown as a leader and in his faith in God. It sparked my interest and all the way back in February 2007 I had a curious eye on Jacob Paurus.

The next most memorable interaction between the two of us happened I believe at the end of March 2007. We were doing a fasting retreat at the HA where you fast from food, talking, electronics, music, and any book other than the Bible. It's a really powerful weekend to wait on the Lord and receive vision for the next season of life. By this point I already knew that I would be attending Bethany College of Missions the next August, so I was more or less searching for a big picture vision. During the retreat I kept wandering off into the back woods behind our campus to get some time alone, but everywhere I went, there was Jake. I was having the hardest time focusing, because by this time, I thought he was pretty cute. I kept crying out to God asking Him to stop letting our paths cross so I could focus, and instead I felt God tell me to pray for Jake to have clarity on what to do after we finished the HA in August. So, every time our paths would cross that weekend, instead of getting all flustered I would just pray for Jake. On Sunday, when the fast ended and the campus was allowed to communicate again, a very excited Jake told me the news that God gave him some clear vision. "I'm going to go to BCOM in August!" I think my heart nearly jumped out of my chest.

The next chapter of our friendship started with a big climate change as we headed north to chilly Minnesota. We made some great friends and had a lot of adventures. There were six of us that ended up hanging out a lot together. 3 guys

And 3 girls

Within the first 2 months the three of us girls realized we were in trouble. We were falling for these guys, but according to the program we were in, there was no dating allowed until April! Not to mention, you weren't allowed to communicate your feelings with a person of the opposite gender until then as well! So, we were left in the unknown. We tried our hardest not to read into everything they did, every nice thing they said, every moment where they singled us out. We did our best to pretend like everything was under control, even though on the inside there was a very expectant heart waiting to be swept away.

April and May came and went leaving my two dear friends in relationships with Jake's two dear friends and the two of us awkwardly trying to figure out how to be friends in the midst of so many paired off people. Thus beginning an extremely challenging chapter of my life.

Jake and I both decided to go to Austria for our internship with BCOM. No, I didn't wait to hear where Jake was going and make my decision based off that, but trust me, I was very aware of what his opinion was. During the 5 months of fundraising at home, I did my best to forget about Jake. The thought of liking him and being on an internship team for 16 months sounded terrible and I didn't want to go through that. We didn't communicate at all during that time and I felt like my heart was at a good place. But of course, God had other things in mind. Our journey to Austria set the tone for what the next 16 months were going to be like. 4 members of my team decided to fly together to Austria. Jake and I were included in that mix, and we all flew to Amsterdam for our layover with the next flight going straight to Vienna. A mix up happened and for some strange reason they allowed our other two teammates on the flight to Vienna, but didn't let Jake and I. So here we are, stranded in Holland, just the two of us. One of the flight attendants that was standing nearby decided to help us. "Don't worry, I'll help you and your girlfriend get on a new flight" Of course Jake quickly corrected her and explained that we were just friends, and her response was "No, if you want to get on a flight together to Vienna, she is your girlfriend." So, as the group of Dutch flight attendants attempted to figure out a new flight for us, they giggled and pointed as they commented on how we would make a good pair.

I can't even begin to count how many times over our 16 months in Austria this scenario took place. Little did I know, that Jake was going through his own problems trying to figure out what to do with the new feelings he was experiencing toward me. I spent almost my entire internship in a complicated push and shove match with Jake, as we both tried to distance ourselves from one another with little to no success. God has a funny sense of humor. Jake and I had similar friends, similar interests, similar taste in music, and somehow we ended up alone together over and over again, even though that was the exact situation we were doing our best to avoid. It was hard, awkward, and I cried many tears as I tried to protect my heart from what I thought was just wishful thinking and a lost cause.I didn't think it was possible to hate and love someone so much at the same time. I was angry almost every time I even looked at Jake and I wasn't very good at hiding it.

Our internship ended and we ventured back to the US for our senior semester at Bethany. It was summer time and our class was excited to experience adventures and fun. But something happened when we set foot on American soil. Jake changed. He suddenly started to act normal around me and instead of pushing me out of his life, he started to allow me into it in small ways. We ended up hanging out almost every free moment we had with my roommate Laura Stocks. At the same time God was working in my heart to forgive Jake and learn to love him even if my expectations weren't met. Over the course of that summer I felt like my feelings for him began to shrink as I came to terms with the reality that August would bring our graduation and that we would part ways and possibly never see one another again. I was ok with that. In fact, I was kind of looking forward to it. I wanted to be able to close that chapter of life, of liking one guy for over 3 years without any reciprocation. I was ready to be done and all I needed to do was survive that summer. The only problem was that God, and Jake, had other things in mind.

August 14th brought our graduation and the two of us were selected to be the class representatives and give a speech. Unbeknownst to me, all over the crowd at our graduation ceremony, grandmas and parents and siblings of our classmates were sure that the two of us would make a great pair. One Dad even came up to Jake and said "I just don't know how to explain it. You guys just have chemistry for ministry or something like that!" The next day at our friends wedding I spied Jake having an in depth conversation with my parents while his friend Tanner attempted to distract me. I felt like I could throw up, cry, and faint all at the same time. I instantly knew that Jake was asking my parents permission to date me. But, like usual, my typical defense mechanism went into action, doing the best to protect my heart from sure disappointment. He must have been talking to them about the weather. There's no way he liked me, he had made that clear for the past 4 years.

I didn't sleep at all that night

The next morning came and I was a wreck. I knew that Jake would be picking me up in just a few short hours to hang out one last day in Minneapolis before we journey to Green Bay together to visit our friends who had just had a baby. I paced through the halls of my dorm, I went to the prayer room and knelt on the floor and cried out to God for mercy. I didn't want to be disappointed. I didn't want my heart to break. I didn't want to have an expectation that surely would not be met. 

I got in the car with Jake and we sat in somewhat awkward silence. We only made it about a mile down the road when he pulled off onto a street I'd never noticed before. He said he wanted us to go on a walk before we started the day. 

"I just wanted us to talk about the status of our friendship since we're parting ways"

Oh no, not another one of these talks. We had had plenty of these conversations and they always went sour. We were terrible communicators with one another and we were very poor at making our intentions clear. This was the last thing I wanted to do. 

"So, (insert Charlie Brown's teacher making that 'woh woh woh' noise in the background because I can't remember a single word he said until...) I was wondering if you would want to be my girlfriend?"

Are you serious? Did he really just say that? Am I making it up? Am I daydreaming again? Can it really be true? I nodded my head yes and we hugged for about 5 minutes straight. The biggest sigh of relief erupted out of my chest and I felt at home and at peace with the man of my dreams. It really happened!

Thus began our journey as a pair. It turns out that Jake had made a commitment to God on August 16th, 2006 when we arrived at the Honor Academy, to dedicate 4 years to God without being in a dating relationship. It was exactly four years to the day! We worked through and received healing for all the confusion and brokenness of our friendship we had put each other through. We apologized, explained what was going through our heads, and we moved on. We dated for 9 months and only spent 3 and a half weeks of that together. We wrote letters to each other for 3 months without any other communication. He proposed to me on my birthday and I said yes to marrying my best friend. Now, we have a month and a half till we're married and I'm still stunned. God has been so good to me! We're amazed at how he intricately wove our lives together, even in the midst of our sin and disobedience, He knew what was right and best. The challenges that arose during this long journey kept me desperate for God and left me in a state of brokenness that made me more lovesick for Jesus. I wouldn't write our story any other way.