We're Engaged!!! Part 2.

So we walk back to the car, and head back to manhattan beach. I take a deep breath and say, "Can I share with you something that might make you angry, and will you promise not to get angry"? he promised me he wouldn't get angry. He promised me he wouldn't get upset, and I told him that I had seen the box and told my brothers and knew... he started laughing so much and said "I KNEW IT, I KNEW you were texting your brothers about it this morning and you all knew". Laughing more and more with me as I told him all the details. Here I was so afraid he was going to be upset with me and it turned into a moment of laughter. We truly never know how someone will react until we speak with them. We always want to assume that we know how another will take something but, we have no idea what's going on in someone's heart in every given moment. People are constantly growing and maturing and we should always give others the grace to respond differently than how we've seen in the past than assume we know exactly how someone will react. (Also, he never get's upset with me so it was random I even thought he would).

As we are headed to the Manhattan Beach Mall, we began to pray over our marriage; that it would point to God's love for all his children (meaning all humanity) and that our lives would point to him. We prayed for our families and friends and then while we are praying I hear, as if someone implanted a thought in my brain, "1 Peters 3:4". I told Patrick I needed to look up a verse, and was overwhelmed to read what it said :

Be good wives to your husbands, responsive to their needs. There are husbands who, indifferent as they are to any words about God, will be captivated by your life of holy beauty. What matters is not your outer appearance—the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes—but your inner disposition.

4-6 Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in. The holy women of old were beautiful before God that way, and were good, loyal wives to their husbands. Sarah, for instance, taking care of Abraham, would address him as “my dear husband.” You’ll be true daughters of Sarah if you do the same, unanxious and unintimidated.

7 The same goes for you husbands: Be good husbands to your wives. Honor them, delight in them. As women they lack some of your advantages.(<obvi that was a cultural thing at the time) But in the new life of God’s grace, you’re equals. Treat your wives, then, as equals so your prayers don’t run aground.

I had no idea that was what the passage would be about! I was so overwhelmed by how REAL God is as I read from the Bible marriage advice from heaven. Out of all the hundreds and hundreds of passages in the whole Bible, in that moment God shared with me versus directly relating to this special moment in my life. I felt his blessing over our choice.

We got to the mall, sat on the ground of the parking lot in the shade to take an engagement photo! Did you see that cute picture in the previous post? Yeah, that was us on the floor of a parking lot under the shade of a construction fence... not so glamorous. BUT WE ARE FABULOUS! We facetimed his best man Resean on the floor of the parking lot screaming and celebrating with him, then facetimed my mom and dad celebrating with them, then facetimed his parents to tell them the good news!

That was a pretty scary phone call for me actually. I've only met his family once, his dad twice, and I know they don't know me well YET so it was really scary for me to see if they would feel excited and happy for us. Of course they were happy for us, but that didn't mean I wasn't scared that they might not have been. I still think I haven't quite grasped that I am not only getting a husband but more family members! That makes me so nervous, it shouldn't though right? That's what we say... but it does. You know, naturally I want them to like me...not even like me but enjoy me and I them! I want us to have a close loving healthy relationship with all our family, but I just get so nervous. You guys, the first night I met his whole family I ended up crying half the night in Patrick's arms because I was so overwhelmed. Despite my outgoing personality, I actually get quite nervous meeting new people, and pretty freaked out. I've just trained myself to push through it...but I get like crazy social anxiety before going to parties or meeting new people, but the more I do it the more I realize that it's okay and even incredible. But even still, it sometimes get's the best of me to this day.

We go into a jewelry store so I can buy Patrick a lil' gift, a white gold chain to hang my purity ring from. Side story: when we first talked about engagement I expressed that it felt like a little handcuff on my finger and why do only women wear them? Why don't men wear them so other women and men see that he's taken... it made me feel like property. Why am I the only one in a tiny handcuff. Patrick laughed aloud till he cried when I said this. TILL HE CRIED! He thought it was so ridiculous that I would want him to wear an engagement ring when I thought it was so reasonable. I was actually pretty offended at first. AH EQUALITY!

Anyway, it ended up being his idea that he would wear my purity ring around his neck as an engagement ring on the day we got engaged. I felt so touched. I was planning on giving him that ring anyway on our wedding day, but I thought wow that is so poetic for him to wear it as an engagement ring, a symbol that even now he is also protecting my purity with God. Purity of heart, mind, and soul.

So before we went in the store I told him, I would like to find something under $100, because chains can be SO EXPENSIVE. What was such a God thang was that the jewelry store was going out of business so the $250 white gold chain was only $96! PRAISE GOD WHAT A GIFT!

>>>>>>Again, a little glimpse in my heart<<<<<<< I was nervous about giving this ring and necklace to him because he loses things... A LOT. Like important things. Like wallets, passports, expensive cross necklaces hahaha. It's actually super funny to me because he's so incredibly responsible it seems unbelievable he could lose things. SO here's this beautiful gesture taking place and I'm all "eek! What if he loses this ring I've saved for 10 years?!" Again, so much of life has so many emotions going on at once!

Then it was a pretty normal day. I went and had to teach a pilates class, I went back to his place (he's currently staying with my brother and sister in law) and we just began to talk of possible dates. When we had prayed, we separately both felt July! When we went up stairs to go share with my brother and sister-in-love and shared with them the day, they then asked "when's the date"? We said, we were thinking July, so excited! Their first response, "Well we are out of town all July". This crushed my spirit.

I thought, okay well we are not getting married for you... I know that was a mean thought. Then I thought, okay how important is it to me if they're there. Also not so kind...Then felt angry that my wedding had to bow to their schedule. Then all of a sudden I was just mad at them, and sad and felt hopeless and went all the way to the extreme "WE WILL NEVER FIND A DATE TO GET MARRIED!!! Classic. We had already been talking dates before he even proposed and we couldn't seem to find anything that worked. So when we had agreed on July it felt like serious break through. I know it sounds dramatic but my brother and sister-in-love's response felt like a bullet through my heart and a stifling of my excitement because it was instantly a problem presented to me at 10pm and I couldn't solve it.

We went downstairs and again I found my self cuddled in Patricks arms crying. When we first started liking each other the question was "Are you official yet", then "have you said I love you"? then "have you talked about getting engaged"? then the second we get engaged "when's the date"? I just felt like, when can we just be happy in the present moment and enjoy this season without instantly being "behind" for the next huge milestone. I was feeling so much pressure to move quickly and make all these choices when all I wanted to do was enjoy him and feel peace. Why anyone just let us rest in the current moment? I was so hurt.

Patrick is incredibly comforting. Wow, so comforting, so compassionate. He's so amazing at listening, and understanding, or holding me, or being so silly that I laugh out of that place of sadness. I was so thankful that he was the one in whom's arms I was crying. I was so thankful that he was sharing this pain with me, not trying to fix me, but simply being in the thick of it with me. But, it was the day we got engaged, and I spent the night crying in his arms because I was so stressed. At the time I didn't know the true "why" to my stress and anxiety. I actually wasn't able to identify it for another 2 weeks. So there we were. Engaged. So happy to choose one another but so anxious and overwhelmed, and neither of us really being able to express why.

This was one day, the supposedly "happiest" day of my life thus far. We had so many tender moments. Times of laughter, and just screaming at the top of our lungs and yelling "we're engaged!!! ah!!!" Praising God for his providence. Having to do ordinary things like eat and go to work, and being completely overwhelmed by the simple trigger of "when's the date"? We learned incredibly fun things from Pixar, ate awesome food at whole foods, and then had to deal with our many expectations that weren't completely in tune with reality. Our days are so dynamic. All Patrick and I want is an engagement full of peace. But even more then that we want an engagement filled with God's presence; for it to be a sign pointing to God and giving him Glory. But I'm learning, not everything needs to be going smoothly and easily to give God Glory. His Glory can be manifested in all of life. He's always working in us and always growing us. And growth is going down paths you've never taken before and that can be scary! As you will see in future posts I have so much more insight now to where these tears were coming from. But every stress, every worry, was a glimpse of areas where I or Patrick were trying to be in control instead of having mutual surrender for one another and untot God. They were moments where fear was leading me instead of God's spirit. God will lead us through all of life if we would only release our fear and need for control and partake in the dance with The Spirit, letting him whirl us around the dance floor.