Our Love Story - Part 6 - Love, Sweet Love

(I’m telling the story of how my husband and I met, dated, and got married. If you missed it, you can read Part 5 HERE.)

It was now April.  We had officially been dating for about one month.  One evening we were spending time together (probably supposed to be studying but, well, you know…) and talking about who knows what.  He was teasing me about something when I jokingly said, “Well, it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks.  At least my mom still loves me.”  To which he replied, “Well Jesus loves you.” And then, in a quieter tone, “And I do too.”  I looked him in the eye and asked him to repeat what he just said. 

He looked me straight in the eyes, “I said I love you.” 

I was speechless.  I was not expecting to hear those words right then.  It took me a minute, and once I recovered from my shock I smiled and said, “Thank you.” Ha!

A long time ago I had made the decision that I was not going to say those words until I was absolutely sure that person was the one for me.  It may seem trite to many, but I believe all of our words have meaning, and I was not going to flippantly say something just to say it.  So after thanking him I explained that I just wasn’t ready to say it back.  He kindly said that it was okay.

A little while later I headed back to my room.  My roommates were busy studying when I walked in and sat down on my bed.  I’m not sure exactly what it was, but I must have been acting differently because my one roommate, LaVonne, looked at me and said, “What’s up with you.  Wait, did he say he loves you?  He loves you!” 

I gave a huge smile and said, “Yes!”  All my roommates immediately began to jump up and squeal with excitement.  I was glad they were excited for me, but felt their reaction was a little, uh, extreme! It was here that they shared a secret they had been keeping from me all year.

From the beginning of the school year, unbeknownst to me, while I was downstairs at night doing my RA stuff, my roomies were up in our room pray for me - specifically for me and my future husband.  They even called it E.P.T. (Emily Prayer Time).  They cared about me so much that they wanted to see me find the “man of my dreams.”  So as they had a front row seat to Matt’s and my budding romance, they were beyond thrilled at each new step. And this next step of Matt telling me he loved me was them seeing their prayers answered. It absolutely brought them great joy.   I was truly humbled when I learned that they had been praying this specifically for me.

Anyhow, for the next month, whenever Matt would say, “I love you,” to me, I would simply respond with, “Thank you.”  It may have been a little awkward, but he never pressured me to say anything different when I wasn’t ready.

It was at some point a few weeks later after spending some time with him, that I went back to my dorm room, sat down, and became overwhelmed with how much I loved him.  I had been praying so much for my future husband since a young teenager, and now I just knew without a doubt Matt was the one I had been praying for.

We were nearing the end of the semester when we would be separated for most of the summer.  I didn’t want that to happen without him knowing how I felt, so I made a super cheesy but heartfelt plan to tell him I loved him.  I went to the dollar store and got a small 50-piece mini-puzzle.  I put it all together, then flipped it over to the blank back.  On the very centre piece I wrote in marker, “I love you.”  I put squiggle lines on the backs of all the other pieces.  (He had written me notes on the backs of these little puzzles several times before, so this wasn’t a new concept for us). 

I gave him the puzzle one afternoon. Except I had kept the center piece out.  He went back to his room, put it together, then called me to tell me a piece was missing.  I played it off like he must have lost it.  The next day, right before we met up to go see his parents (which, by the way, was the first time I would be meeting them and I was so nervous!), I handed him a card with the puzzle piece taped inside.  He opened the card, looked at it, and saw that it had “I love you” written on it.  “Now our puzzle is complete!” I said.  I know, super cheesy.  But to see the huge grin on his face - worth it.

Graduation came and Matt graduated with his bachelors degree.  A short time later I traveled up to New Brunswick to visit him for a week.  It was my first time here.  Little did I know then that it would someday become my home too!  He proudly showed me where he grew up and even took me to PEI to tour all the Anne of Green Gables sites.

We then spent a long summer apart.  He headed up north in Quebec to run a month-long camp for the Cree.  We barely talked because he had little access to a phone and was super busy.  I was back home spending the summer with my parents.

As much as I enjoyed the time with my parents, I missed Matt very much and couldn’t wait to go back for my final year of school.  We were to the point in our relationship that we were talking about marriage and the future very seriously.  I knew an engagement was coming.  I just didn’t know when…

Click HERE for Part 7.