Love Story

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I know it’s probably very cliché to write a post about < L O V E > on Valentine’s Day, but the thing is, I love (bah dum tssss) clichés.

No, in all seriousness, I have been wanting to share this story on my blog for a while, and I figured this was as good of a day as any to do so.

If you’ve kept up with my blog, then you know a bit about my past relationships. I started seriously dating when I was 18, and with every relationship, I lost myself a bit more each day. I always thought that I was in love, and when I look back, I can see that there was no love in any part of those abusive relationships. Each relationship cut deeper than the last, and I continued to believe that “abuse” was all I was worth.

After a really terrible experience (regarding these relationships) at my first university, I decided to move home. I wanted help, I wanted out, but I had been abandoned by a lot of people in my life, who’d decided to take the side of my abuser. So I finally made a huge, life-changing decision. I moved to Winona Lake to finish my degree.

And so, I did! I moved to the crappiest, should-be-condemned apartment known to man, and started on a two-year track towards a degree in youth ministry. I ended up moving into a much nicer house with roommates, and just a year after the move to Winona, I met Ethan. He was so different than any man who’d ever showed interest in me. He made me feel really safe, even when we were just friends. I could see Jesus in him. He didn’t just talk about his faith, you could see the light of God inside of him.

Those of you who know us and have walked with us through our relationship know that things moved very fast. After about two months of friendship, Ethan and I started dating. Seven months into dating, Ethan proposed to me, and just two months after that, we were married. Almost a year to the date of meeting each other, I was married to my favorite person in the world.

Because of my health, I didn’t really think marriage was going to be possible. My prior boyfriends made it consistently clear that they hated putting up with the pain and insomnia and seizures. I was constantly being put down for having to cancel plans or adjust a date. This was the exact kind of experience I expected with Ethan...and oh, how wrong I was. I have never met another person with the kind of patience that E has. He picks up my prescriptions without hesitation. He’s not even a bit disappointed when he comes home and I’ve been unable to cook dinner. He’s quick to draw a bath or rub my feet when the pain is so bad I can’t think straight. He holds me when I’m crying from exhaustion because I just can’t sleep. And it’s not just patience and understanding with my health; it’s patience with my past, understanding regarding the PTSD, and endless of both through the grief of losing dad. Through every moment of physical or emotional pain, E is there to unconditionally love me through it all.

Friends, if you are walking through abuse as I was, man or woman, I want you to understand that you deserve a spouse that treats you like Ethan treats me – the way that Christ loves his Church. I want to share with you that there is hope – hope I didn’t know existed in those 6+ years of abuse. And if any of you feel a call towards of a life of singleness, then let me tell you, you’ve still got the greatest Love Story known to man:

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” Romans 5:6-11, NIV

Ethan’s love is the closest kind of human love I can experience to God’s sacrifice, but God’s love story is so much greater. And I firmly believe that it was God who led me straight to such an amazing man. I firmly believe that God showed me, through His love, how a man is supposed to treat me. I firmly believe He helped heal the wounds from my past so that I could see and believe this type of love was available to me. And as I grew closer to God, and continued to experience His complete and unconditional love, I was able to believe it more and more every day. Our love story can never even hope to come close to God’s with us, but the longer we hope and act within His, the more ours can begin to mirror it.

Regardless of where your life is (or where you believe it is headed) you, if you so choose, are a part of the greatest Love Story known to man. As John writes in his gospel: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” John (3:16-17, NIV)

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