The Male Point of View

This week I'm going to give you our courtship from Terry's point of view. I don't think it's coincidence that I took seven weeks to tell mine, and I'll cover his in just one week. Typically, guys don't say as much as girls. If you'd like to read my side of the story, you can go here to read part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, and part seven.

After high school, Terry went to a small Bible college about an hour from his home in Michigan. He spent two years there, plus one summer traveling with the drama team. Unfortunately, the faculty and administration of the school were caught up in a lot of political scrambling. By the end of the second year, the college was not the same and Terry was pretty disillusioned. He ended up living back with his parents, working in a metal tubing factory and drifting away from the Lord. By his own admission, he hated his life. He would go into work when it was dark and by the time he left his shift, it was dark again. This continued throughout the summer and into the fall. Finally he decided that this was not what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted to make some changes and start getting back into the Lord's will again.

Terry had a fairly serious girlfriend in high school and through those first two years of college, even though they went to different schools. When he stopped living for the Lord, their relationship suffered. Eventually the girlfriend broke off their relationship and started dating someone from her college. One of the first decisions Terry made was to go back to college. He also decided that he was going to get back together with his girlfriend, so he chose to go to her school. Which also happened to be my school.

Terry arrived with high hopes and the expectation that he and The Serious Girlfriend would be back together within the week. But two things happened in that week. One, he saw how much The Serious Girlfriend cared for the guy in her new relationship. Two, he saw how many other opportunities for dating were around. So he asked out the tall, gangly girl, the girl with the googly eyes and the girl with the donkey laugh. None of those made for a second date.

You've already read how hard it was for him to get a second date with me. But I wasn't the only one in the way of our relationship. Terry set his sights on me and decided he liked me. But when he decided to date around, he made three rules for himself. He wouldn't date a freshman. He wouldn't date a preacher's daughter. He wouldn't date to get serious.

Strike three.

So if he had all these requirements that I didn't fit, and if I wasn't exactly being the most agreeable person to date anyway, how did we end up together?

First off, if you know Terry at all, you know he's determined. When he hears something can't be done, that just challenges him to find a way to accomplish it anyway. He does not give in to defeat, and he's a very outside-the-box sort of person, so there's always tons of ways for him to attempt to accomplish whatever he sets his mind to. But his determination is not the only reason we're together.

Sometime before Terry and I met, he spent some time praying that God would show him the person he should marry. Not too long after that he dreamed that he was driving at night in his car. Two people were with him, one in the front and one in the back. He turned to the girl sitting next to him, she smiled at him and he knew that was the girl he would marry. Terry always remembered that dream, but it wasn't like he had a vivid picture of the girl. Nor was he using that dream as his criteria for dates. But shortly after he and I started dating, my sister and I started catching rides with him to and from church on Sundays and Wednesdays. I always rode "shotgun", and my sister rode in the back seat. One night as we drove back to the dorms, I laughed at something he was saying. And in that moment he remembered his dream and the face of the girl came sharply into focus.

He saw me in his dream before he ever met me.

From that moment on, he knew that I was the one. Thankfully, he did not tell me that at the time because that probably would have sent me running in the opposite direction. But that's why he kept going even when I didn't give him much encouragement. He had enough faith in us for both of us.

Come to think of it, that's pretty much the way our married life has gone. And I'm more than okay with that.

I want to thank Rachel at Musing of a Future Pastor's Wife for starting this carnival. I've enjoyed reading the other stories, and I loved heading down memory lane and thinking over the beginning of mine and Terry's romance. Thanks for the memories!