"God told me we're going to get married."

Well, since, i wasn't around then, and i haven't heard any of the stories in a while, i asked my parents to retell the story of their engagement for me. That was like 4 months ago. Today, my mom responded. I'll just have to fill in from what i can remember for my dad's side.

Well, if you've been reading, you know that my dad has just gotten saved and that he is going to church with my Uncle Chris. It's 1972, and my dad is 26/27 years old. He has told me in the past that he kept noticing my mom, but he was afraid to ask her out because he had her mixed up with another girl who was only 16 or 17 years old, and he didn't think that would be appropriate.

Here's my mom's side.

It was summer-fall of 1972.

We met at church, it’s a little
sketchy.
I remember him standing in the lobby and he said “hi” as I walked
by. I had seen him around, but I didn’t know him and so I wondered (to my self)
why he said hi to me. (I had no interest in him.)

I remember going
with the youth group to a roller skating event and we ended up in the same
car.

Then on New Year’s Eve we were at a party at the pastor’s home
and his daughter and son-in-law suggested that David give me one of the two hot
dogs he had roasted in the fire place. They were apparently trying to get us
together.

Then in February, I was waiting for my brothers after the
evening service. They were practicing their singing and I didn’t have another
way home. So David saw his chance and offered to take me home. I was wondering
if he would be going out of his way and he said, no.

Well, before the night was over he had asked me for a date. I
agreed to go to a movie with him on Tuesday night. We watched “Sounder”.
Then he told me we were going to get married, and that scared me to death.
He said God told him we were getting married. After that we both did a lot
of praying. He hadn’t actually asked me marry him so I hadn’t said yes or
no at that point.

But after a lot of prayer he asked me, and when I said OK he actually
fell down on one knee because he was surprised and scared! That was some
time in the beginning of March and we got married in
September.

September 22, 1973, to be exact. It was a beautiful wedding. My mother made her own wedding dress. My dad and the men wore some truly awful baby blue tuxedos with ruffles (i'll have to find a picture), and my favorite picture of all from my parents' wedding is the one of all my mother's brothers carrying my dad around in the air and getting ready to put him in a tree. i don't know why you put someone in a tree on their wedding day. Maybe it's a Swedish tradition or something, but it's a pretty funny picture, and for some reason, in my mind at least, it is a symbol of healing in my dad's life. What was once a broken life, now whole again--a whole new beginning.

And another thing i love about that story... after 34 years, my dad is still so enamored with my mother, that he still seems a little surprised that she loves him....but oh so pleased that she does. =)