Our story is a different one. Admittedly, I used to be embarrassed by it but I have since learned that God gives us all stories and mine just happens to be…special.
You see, Hubby and I have been on somewhat of a rocky ride. The highlights are that we met at 13, decided we were going to get married at 14, tried to elope at 16, and got married at 18. Yes, really.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first question people always have is where we met, so that is where I’ll begin. Hubby and I met in Bandung, Indonesia in eighth grade; I was on a field trip with my class from Malaysia to visit the volcanoes of Bandung and he was going to school there while his parents were missionaries in the area, and we knew that he would be attending my school as a boarding student the next year. Love at first sight? Hardly. I had a not-boyfriend and Hubby kind of got on my nerves, but on that trip we did at least get to know each other.
My class flew back to Malaysia and promptly decided Hubby and Sarah were a match made in Heaven and that took him off the market, effectively rendering him forgotten to me. Six months later, he showed up in my ninth grade class and my fourteen year old dramatic self decided he was a player and not worth my time–that is, until he starting “liking” my best friend and I got jealous. After a few failed set ups, he finally gave up on her and admitted his undying love for me, his one true love for all of eternity.
The summer after our freshman year of high school, I pulled him aside and told him that he had better be ready to marry me if he was going to continue to pursue me. Fourteen year old Hubby told me he was going to marry me. Fourteen years old.
At fourteen years old, we weren’t quite ready to get married yet, but we somehow didn’t know that. We had already decided this was it and we had nowhere for our relationship to grow except towards impending disaster. I wouldn’t even let Hubby kiss me until we were engaged, so we spent two years growing closer and becoming better friends and building an emotional attachment far too deep for sophomores in high school to maintain any type of boundaries with.
We did have one thing going for us–we were best friends.
On Friday nights we would sit on our bench outside the student center and literally talk for four or five hours at a time. Sunday nights we would lean against the concrete wall and watch storms roll in over the ocean. Tuesday evenings after soccer practice we would hold hands outside our lockers and try to steal time together.
But we were only fourteen, then fifteen, and at sixteen we were finally allowed to officially start dating. What a glorious day indeed! It led us to a point, however, where we really couldn’t move forward. We were only sixteen and had already decided to get married but we couldn’t actually get married but we were too emotionally attached to still have boundaries and we didn’t want to cross our boundaries so we did the obvious thing…
We tried to get married.
At sixteen.
And then we got caught. And expelled from high school.
Oops…
Hubby moved back to the US with his parents and I stayed in Malaysia and began to work full time as a barista. Let me tell you, I fell in love all over again. I loved that job, and those six months working full time instead of going to high school were, interestingly enough, the best of my entire high school career.
My last year of high school, the school board decided I could return to complete my senior year under one circumstance–I had no communication with Hubby. I talked to him anyway. Four months later, my relationship with God hit a wall and I knew it was because I was hiding my communication with Hubby from my parents. I told them everything and once again, I was kicked out of high school.
This time I moved across the country to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The school decided if I worked as a missionary for the rest of the year, they would give me my diploma and I wouldn’t be stuck with a GED for the rest of my life, so I started work as an English teacher at a Burmese refugee school. For eight months I had absolutely zero contact with Hubby.
I completed my semester working in Kuala Lumpur, graduated with a diploma, and moved to Santa Barbara, California to work for the summer before I moved to England in the fall. During that summer, Hubby graduated from Marine Corps boot camp, and I knew it was time for our communication cut off to be over. The day after he graduated I called him and told him I wanted to see him again. Nine days later, I was on a place to New York, and those four days reunited the spark that really had never died. Those blissful four days ended and he left for more training in North Carolina while I left for my new job in England.
A month later, we couldn’t be apart anymore. I spent my entire savings on a plane ticket back to the USA and we spent our first ever Christmas together camping and spending the night in Denny’s because we were too poor for hotels (that only happened once, but that was one long night). On New Year’s Eve, Hubby skyped my Dad to ask the question (lowercase letters), and the second he hung up the Skype call he burst into the bathroom where I was getting ready for our evening together and got down on one knee to ask The Question (capital letters). It was simple and it was spur of the moment, but it was ours and it was perfect.
Nine hours later, I was on a plane back to London.
I planned our entire wedding in California from England, with the help of my mother in Malaysia. Originally, all we planned for was a courthouse wedding, but as more and more people told us they would be able to come, our wedding grew to 80 guests with a beautiful ceremony and reception. How splendid it was. Due to Hubby’s work, we couldn’t get time off for a honeymoon so we had one night in a local hotel, and every trip since has been our honeymoon 😉
Five years later the honeymoon stage has worn off, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t still blissfully in love. Second only to Jesus, Hubby is the best decision I have ever made and I will continue to choose him every day of my life. Life has changed significantly since we met. One continent, five moves, two houses, three apartments, three babies, and ten years later, life is better than ever thanks to a God who has blessed us so abundantly we can hardly believe it.
I cannot wait for the next seventy years.