As promised...
I'm going to go right back to the beginning, way before it all started, so that you can get a better picture of how it all worked out for the best.
Well, picture me starting at uni...I had been home-schooled all the way, so was rather shy and didn't have a clue how to talk to men properly. Everyone said to me 'when you're at university you're bound to meet The One', so I was half-hopeful and half-uncertain. I certainly didn't find any gorgeous men in my first few weeks of term and so I settled down to hoping for the next year, when maybe I would meet someone in a different class, and then the next year... Fastforward two years, I was much more confident, doing well in my degree, and had a good circle of friends. One of those friends both irritated me and fascinated me. He was insanely clever, a little bit too arrogant, and knew exactly how to make me feel unsettled and uncertain, arguing with me then caring for me. We had a very up and down friendship, falling out at one moment, having deep, long conversations the next. I finished my first degree and started the next one and we kept in touch, and I thought that I was falling in love. I know now that it was just infatuation, but at the time I had never felt like anything like it before and didn't know what it was like. In the end I let my feelings show and he rejected me totally. I was hurt and couldn't understand why that happened when all the signs had seemed to be good. All I can say now is that I am so, so grateful for God's preservation that nothing happened. We never even touched, and never got to a point where I gave some of my heart away.
So there I was, frustrated and feeling very, very single. During this second degree, another man came my way - much better looking, really rather charming, amusing....and not a Christian. Due to the fact that I was still rather sore and still rather shy, I never really fell for him. We drifted apart after the end of my second degree, yet he rang me several months later to tell me that he had really liked me and had never made a move because he thought I was interested. Once again, saved completely from another error of judgement! What seemed like a missed opportunity at the time was really God's perfect planning.
I was now taking a year out between my second and third degrees (yeah, I know), and it hurt so much to be still single. Several of my friends were getting married and I hated the loneliness of going to their weddings and sitting by myself, having no one to dance with or to hold my hand. I begged God for a man; I convinced myself and tried to convince him too that I was ready for one. But there just didn't seem to be any opportunities in my life for meeting new men.
So, when I was 24 I moved away from home for my third degree, once again filled with hopes that a new university would bring a new social circle and maybe new men. Despite all this, I had struck up an unlikely friendship with a young man from home and we kept in touch via texting and I filled my head with notions that maybe something would happen long distance... During the first term, I passed my FH several times in the corridors of the university department and never knew that we were meant to be together - after all, it wasn't where I was looking for him!
Christmas and New Year passed and I discovered that the man from home that I had kept in touch with actually had a girlfriend. Once again, hurt and confused, I finally gave my whole lovelife to God. I admitted that I was pretty hopeless at sorting it out and told him that I would wait until he was ready. And for the first time, I actually enjoyed being single! I had plenty of girlie evenings and enjoyed just chatting to male acquaintances without eyeing them up as future marriage material.
So there I was, enjoying myself properly for the first time in ages. In February, I was assigned my new tutor group (I tutor in the university), and the head of first year apologised for giving me the Monday 10am slot....after all, no one wanted to sign up for that one and so he had just put all the students who hadn't been organised enough to sign up into my group... I don't remember much about the first tutorial I held, but at the second one one of my tutees caught my eye. He was slightly cheeky, clearly intelligent, much better looking than I had remembered, had a gorgeous smile, and we seemed to strike up a rapport immediately. I remember coming out of the tutorial slightly flushed and hoping desperately that I hadn't flirted with the one tutee who had been prepared to answer all my questions. As the days passed, I couldn't stop this tutee lurking at the back of my mind. I decided to stalk him on facebook...and received a little thrill of pleasure as I noticed that he stated he was a Christian on there.
Well, I added him as a friend. We sent a few tentative posts, a little flirty, a little shy. But I had no idea how to begin a friendship, let alone find out anything more. However, just before the Easter holidays, I wanted to give him essay feedback and saw an ideal opportunity to send a message. To my surprise, he replied instantly, chattily. Over the holidays our daily emails grew in length as we discovered more about each other and realised that we seemed to have a lot of values, beliefs and interests in common. The day after we both returned to university after the holidays, he asked me out for a drink. I was half-delighted, half-panic-striken - this was a tutee, after all! I told him that, yes, I was interested but that he was going to have to wait till the end of term when I would no longer be his tutor. I hadn't done all this studying to lose my position over a few weeks' misguided judgement!
I am a little ashamed of myself to admit that I couldn't wait all those weeks to see him and talk to him on his own, although I can promise that we didn't go on any dates until it was all official. We met up to do some "essay help" (the biggest euphemism ever!), unsure exactly what was going to happen. We were both so nervous and still not sure what each other felt. After a very short time, the books were pushed aside and he kissed me lightly, just once. I can't describe how happy I felt after all those years of waiting!
We did stick out the two weeks though, and then officially became a couple. It all felt such a whirl though - was he really the man that I had been waiting for for almost 25 years? Gradually, as we got to know each other better, I felt such certainty that he was. When I first brought him home to my parents, they were very surprised. They had had an image in their head of the type of man that I would marry - thin, dark haired, intense (think Adrien Brody in The Pianist!). And here was this tall, broad, bearded, fun-loving man who didn't fit any of their imaginings! Yet he is so much more than I could ever have asked for - things that I never even dreamt I wanted in a man and yet realised I couldn't do without. I am so glad that God didn't listen to me and gave me someone better! Even more so, I am so glad that every single opportunity that I might have had before was stopped before it developed anywhere...he really is the first man I gave my heart to, the first man I held hands with, the first man I hugged, the first man I kissed...well, literally the first of everything! And it is so good to know that I didn't waste anything on anyone else.
As we got closer and were prepared to tell each other more, I discovered plenty more that made me realise once again how perfect it was once God sorted out my love story. Amazingly, I seemed to have found one of the very few men left in the world who had got to 20 without any sexual experience whatsoever. I'm so glad that we get to do everything together first! Anyway, after only a couple of weeks, I knew that I did love this man and it was nothing like I had ever felt before. After perhaps six months, maybe a little less, the issue of marriage was first raised, rather jokingly, and then we suddenly realised that it was what we both wanted - it was where we wanted our relationship to go. We both felt so certain and promised each other that marriage was definitely on its way, if a few years in the future!
And so here I am now, with a shiny ring and looking forward to the next part of my love story!
Subject: Rose's love story 
Mon Mar 23, 2009 5:17 pm
