My friend Caroline and her boyfriend recently said “I love you” to each other for the first time, and I am so happy that she is happy. Hearing her story got me thinking (and her wondering) about the first time Daniel and I said “I love you,” and when we started talking about the possibility of marrying each other.
The first thing Daniel said about marriage happened after we had been dating only a couple of weeks. It was a silly “if” statement he made as he was getting up to turn on the tiny television I had in my dorm room. It was something along the lines of, “If we get married, we are getting a big flat-screen TV.” I think I responded with, “Oh really?” and that was the end of that.
I am the one who said “I love you” first, which I really didn’t plan on doing. We were relaxing in my dorm room and my roommate at the time, Maria, left to go down the hall. I was laying my head on Daniel’s shoulder and we were holding hands. We were quiet, and I don’t remember what we had been talking about before, but apparently it had gotten me thinking. After a couple of minutes, I took a deep breath and said, “I have something I want to tell you, but I’m scared to.”
“What is it?” Daniel asked. I deliberately kept my gaze fixed across the room. My heart was pounding. Another minute went by.
“Well…” I said, in barely more than a whisper. “I just wanted to tell you… that I love you.” I still didn’t look at him, and what felt like forever passed by in silence before Daniel said quietly, “I love you, too.” Letting out the breath I had been holding, I sat up quickly to look at him.
“Really??”
“Really,” he smiled. “How long have you been wanting to say that?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know,” I said. “A while. But I didn’t want to say it so soon.”
“Me either,” Daniel replied. “That was brave of you. I was planning on saying it at Christmas.”
It was the middle of October. We had only been dating about a month and a half. Shocking, believe me I know! I didn’t tell anyone for a while, and I don’t think my parents knew that I loved him until a long time after that. All I know is that I didn’t want anyone to tell me I said it too soon. I knew it was probably too soon, and today I would probably tell any eighteen-year-old who “fell in love” within two months of meeting someone that they were crazy. But I knew that I loved him. I just knew. As far as I was concerned, there was no point in waiting. Luckily for me, Daniel felt the same way. And luckily for both of us, we didn’t get it wrong.The subject of marriage wouldn’t be seriously brought up at all for a couple more months…
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4 comments:
Oh hey... Congrats to Caroline (that's so special)... I miss you guys! Hope all is well (ps. love the dress)
:) that one really really made me smile.
I miss you, I miss daniel, I miss our dorm room and I miss college/the good old days.
-J
My husband and I only dated for 4 months before we were engaged, and we were kinda unofficially engaged after only 2 months. Our engagement was 14 months, making it 18 months from the day we met to our wedding day. I never thought I would have a short courtship, but my husband and I had discerned marriage and took marriage seriously. We knew we were on the right page when our families had no concerns about our time-line as they saw how much we were trying to genuinely prepare for a holy, healthy, happy marriage for life. There is no official "right" time-line for a marriage in God's plan:-) Even so, some people think we were crazy to get engaged so soon:-)
I was 17, my husband was 19 when we met. We were "unofficially" engaged 4 months later, officially (he asked my parents) 2 months after that and married 18 months later. Five chldren and 35 years later we are still together, still in love. God put us here, put us together and calls us to continue His work. With that as a founding principle, all else falls in place. God bless you both.
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