God am I crazy? Is it just wishful thinking? Am I forcing myself to have so much peace about this? Can I really “just know”?
One year ago today I remember asking myself these very questions while staring out at the ocean on a boat in the Philippines. It stands out to me because the questions I was so used to asking were more along the lines of…
Why am I not crazy about this? Why don’t I have peace about this? and why can’t I “just know”?
When I met Colleen I saw her Cubs shirt and yelled across the field “Cubs Suck!” and shook my fist at her… now we are getting married though she is still a Cubs fan. I guess this is what Paul was talking about when he says that love covers a multitude of sins. Looking back it easy to see how all this happened.. Our Coaches last year told Colleen and I that we would click with eachother. One even told Colleen that he thought we would end up liking eachother, even though the rules stated that there were to be no relationships on the trip. So it seemed to be unavoidable in a lot of ways. Two people, naturally inclined to like eachother, on a trip around the world where they would spend every single day together, though thick and thin, through hard times and great times, through tears and fears. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was in way more than I had ever been before… about three months to be more specific.
So there I was, in the Philippines, praying and asking God for a sign… God if you want this let the boat catch on fire… God if you want this make a wave come and hit me in the face… God if you want this show me. As cliche as it may sound I saw in the midst of the boat a rainbow. “I’ll take it,” I remember thinking. But the thing that stood out most was the peace… I really “just knew.” I remember smiling trying to conjure up the future… I had never been so peaceful. The best part was, I didn’t have to do anything. All I had to do was be myself. She couldn’t run, we had to be with eachother for the rest of the year. I didn’t feel like I had to act or else I would miss out, we weren’t allowed to have a real romantic relationship anyways.
So we continued on. We got to be around eachother, we got to laugh together, we got to get frustrated with eachother and other people, we got to know eachother. I got to fall in love with her laugh, with her joy, with her heart for hurting people, with the way she connects with people at such a deep level. It’s amazing that I am still falling in love with those things. It’s amazing that we got to grow together. It’s amazing that one year later, that peace still rests in my heart. It’s amazing that God has had his fingerprints all over this thing from the start.
So… now I get to continue this. I get to keep loving her. I get to marry the girl who in my eyes is the greatest girl in the world. No one can laugh like her. No one can care like she does. No one is as tender hearted as she is. No one gives herself away like she does. No one has as much fun as she can. I get to marry this girl. I get to die for this girl. I get to be one with this girl. I get to experience God in a way I probably never could have imagined with this girl.
So I knew my life would change when I signed up for the Race… but I never would have imagined this. This is so much more than I ever wanted or thought I would have. This is soooooo good! There is so much more to learn and experience! There is so much more to know about eachother. There is so much God is doing.
Many of you might be wanting to know how I proposed… Colleen is all over that. You can read her blog (http://colleenfoley.theworldrace.org/?filename=the-story) and you can look at a ton of pictures (.http://picasaweb.google.com/sheena.mb/StarredPhotos?authkey=fAz8bB9MCvY#) It was one of those days where you just knew God was right there with you. It was one of those days that you just knew was supposed to happen.
