Never Quite Still: The Proposal... :)

OK, it's about time I shared how my fiancé, Tim, proposed!! But before I get into the details of his incredibly sweet and well-thought-out proposal, I wanted to share a bit of reflection...

In glancing back through my prayer journals over the past several months, a prayer from late March of this year caught my attention. It was concerning Tim. I remember well the feelings of uncertainty and fear I was experiencing at the time. It was only about 2 weeks later that we broke up for the second (and I was pretty sure the last) time. Here's a snippet of my prayer:
"God, you know where we are with wanting to come to a decision about our future...it seems so impossible to think of coming to a conclusion one way or the other (for Tim). It can be scary and overwhelming to think about. I beg for your guidance, confidence and peace as we seek you and your direction. I pray that we'd truly be seeking YOU first and foremost. Grow us and prepare us and bring us closer to You through this time of searching and waiting. I know you will, so thank you!"

Oh how God answered that prayer. There were many, many more fervent prayers for peace, for trust and patience in God's timing, and for guidance as I faced the "why's" and "what now's" in the weeks and months to come. The first part of Psalm 37 became a passage I memorized, reflected on and prayed through again and again. And you know what? God grew me. He prepared me. He gave me delight in Him and not just my plans and my desires. He gave me trust and peace that surpasses human comprehension. The questions didn't go away by any means, but God used them to grow my strength and confidence in Him and His will. And I'm still pretty much ecstatic that His will so happens to be for Tim and I to get married. Wow, God, thank you!!

OK, so on to The Proposal!

We got engaged the last day in November, which was a Friday...but rewind a couple days before that to Wednesday evening. Without my knowing it, Tim had coordinated with my parents to meet and take them out to dinner to ask their permission to marry me. Step 2 was successful. ...Oh yeah, I forgot to mention Step 1. The weekend after Thanksgiving, he went home to NoVa be with his family. That Sunday before returning, he went to the jeweler with his dad and picked out a ring. Step 1 and 2 were totally unbeknownst to me. Totally.

Earlier in the week Tim had suggested we go out for a nice dinner. I'm not one to turn down nice dinners, so I said "Absolutely," and then jokingly suggested we could celebrate our relationship (we'd been talking/dating again since the beginning of the month). So fast forward to Friday night. I'd been feeling pretty sick with sinus/cold stuff, and had only gotten worse all week long...but I was determined not to miss out on a nice date night. Tim wouldn't tell me where we were going, but he arrived with a bouquet of flowers and off we went to Ballantyne to a nice Italian restaurant called Villa Antonio. For those of you who know me well - and pretty much anyone who knows me at all - you know that I love good food and adore most anything Italian. So the fact that Tim wanted to take me out to a nice Italian restaurant....sweeeeeeet.

As we were eating, Tim asked if I'd be terribly opposed to going somewhere else for dessert. He knows I take dessert pretty seriously, too. ...OK, very seriously. :) I told him I was fine with whatever. When we headed out of Charlotte and down towards Rock Hill, I started to wonder what exactly he had planned. Where in Rock Hill had a worthy dessert location?? Tim probably knew exactly what I was thinking, so he mentioned his idea: to go to our friend's house to hang out and have dessert there. OK, cool.

So background information: these friends, the Unruhs, live directly behind our church. There's the church and the parking lot, then a little patch of woods and then the Unruhs' backyard and their house. There's even a little path that goes through the woods from the church to their house.

Well, as we're about to get to their house, Tim slows down and pulls into the very vacant church parking lot instead. "K, guess we're going for a walk," I thought. As Tim parked the car, I smiled and commented on the fact that this was where we first met. Yup, it was part of Tim's plan to bring me to the place where we met and talk about it, so I made that part extra easy.

We met at church almost 4 years ago when we were both volunteering at our church's ESL (English as a Second Language) program. I'd just passed my test to become an ACSM certified personal trainer, and he had just committed to run his first ever marathon. ... :)

So anyways, then Tim said that he had to go into the woods (translation: he had to go to the bathroom....or at least that's what I thought). Tim goes out into the woods and I sit in the car and listen to the playlist of songs that he put together on his iPad. Super sweet: he'd gathered a bunch of songs that we both liked or that reminded him of me. So I was distracted while he was "in the woods". When he finally got back, he had a lighter in his hand. "Ummm, what is that for?" I asked. He laughed and told me not to worry about it, and then suggested we walk through the woods to the Unruhs' house. It was a mild night, so I was totally up for that. As we approached the woods, I saw why he'd had the lighter: he had set little candles up along the entire path. Aww, how nice!

So we walk through the candlelit woods and get to the large clearing that is the Unruhs' backyard. I'm assuming that we're going up to the house, so I almost missed the little table set up outside. It was beautiful! There were chocolate truffles strewn over the whole table (yum) and lit candles lining both sides. At the back was a gorgeous vase with a dozen red roses (my faves) and then front and center was his bible. We've been trying to take time to read the bible together, and so on our way earlier, he'd suggested we do that at the Unruhs'. I was thinking that this was a pretty sweet way to read the bible together...definitely no complaints.

We sat down in the 2 chairs set up with the table, and Tim began reading in Psalm 119 ("Blessed are those who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart..."). After reading this first portion of Psalm 119, he flipped over to Proverbs 31, which is a passage often labeled "A Wife of Noble Character." He read through this, and as he read, he would pause and point out attributes in me that he saw reflected in this woman of noble character. Wow. From there, we had a little interruption because I was shivering with cold at this point. So Tim ran inside the house and returned with a pot of coffee, 2 mugs and a blanket for me to wrap up in. What can I say? He knows me well :). So back to the bible. Tim continued reading, this time in Colossians 1 where it talks about how Christ presents us - his Church of believers - as pure and without blame before God because of his sacrifice on our behalf. And finally, he turned to Ephesians 5, to the part where it references wives and husbands. He read down through and got to the part where it says husbands should love their wives like Christ loves the Church and sacrificed himself for it so that he could present the Church as blameless and pure before God.

THEN, Tim stopped reading, turned to me and said: "Rachel, I want my main ministry in life to be to present you to God as blameless and pure one day. I love you" - and by this point he was pulling out the ring and getting down on one knee...and then he asked me to marry him. :) And I said yes, although I was in shock. So many, many prayers had gone into this relationship, both when we were dating and separated...but it seemed impossible that I'd ever hear those words from Tim. Yay for God's work and His timing.

So anyways, just the icing on the cake: Tim and our friend Verla Unruh had collaborated on putting together a little party for after we got engaged. So Tim and I went inside to a group of some close friends, only half of which actually knew what was going on. The others had been called - on a Friday night - and asked to come over "for a big announcement that they wouldn't want to miss"...so they had no idea what they were waiting on. But everyone showed up, and once Tim and I came in and the big announcement was made clear, we celebrated with lots of hugs and a double dark chocolate cake with Sambuca sauce (from another of my fave Italian restaurants around here). ...Tim had gone in to work at 6:30 that morning so that he could get off early enough to go pick up the cake and set up the table and candles. SO sweet.

So that's the story. As I play with my ring, it's sometimes still hard to believe that we are getting married. I'm ever so grateful for God's work and his provision and his incredible work in changing hearts...once again I cannot deny His faithfulness, His love, and His abundant goodness to me.

Jeremiah 31:13
I will turn their mourning into joy;
I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.