It all started about 4 and a half years ago. It was the summer before my senior year. I was at a peak point in my life where I was in disagreement with my parents and my heart was hardened towards the "church." My mom quit her job and my dad lost his business so we could go to a week long prayer retreat in poplar bluff Missouri. I resented the fact that they made me go but I was determined to give God one more chance. I figured I was going to be there for a week anyways so I might as well put my heart into it. I decided that God was going to show up that week or I was giving up on him. It was a tough week I was eaten alive by mosquitoes to the point where my legs where swollen and red and I was miserable. I sprained my ankle and the medics put me on crutches. I had 1 shower the while week so I stank and wore no makeup. I looked and felt like crap but I pushed through it and worshiped God like I had never before. And I will never forget what happened that week.
The night was young. The tent was packed and the music was loud and I felt Gods precense. My parents came to me while I was laid out in the front and said they were leaving to go I to town to take showers at a church who had offered up their facilities. I declined because I felt a pull to stay. They left and I stayed. The service ended quickly after that but I still felt a pull to the tent. I looked around and noticed Jay (we are going to call him that for the sake of the story.) I had met him the first day that we arrived. He came walking across the field and helped my dad put up the gigantic army tent we were staying in. I remember the so g that was playing on the radio. It had been our theme song that week. And it was by Jesus culture and is said I'm just going to keep running towards you.
Anyways...I felt a pull to go talk to him. Now I know God was involved because I wouldn't have had the courage to do what I did next with out him. I walked right up to him and we began to talk. I followed him around that night because he had things to get done. Because he was working for the ranches owner. We rode around on the carts that they were driving until it ran out of gas and we Carly had enough to drive it back to the garage. We had to walk back. I was barefoot because well I hate shoes. He gave me a picky back ride down the gravel road. And we settled around the Bon fire. People began to dwindle as they all returned to their tents. And we talked the night away. We stayed up that night till 3 or 4 in the morning just talking. And it was in that moment that I believed in love at first sight. I didn't choose to love him. He was put in my path and my heart chose that path.
I remember the day we left to go back home. And he stood and watched till our truck disappeared. I would later find out that the man standing next to him would tell him that I would be back. Neiter of us at this point knew that he was speaking a prophetic word.
I remember the first time we said I love you. It was at a time we had spent hours on the phone. I was sitting in my upstairs bed room looking out the window. And we said it. We said the three words that would change our lives forever. Of course that first time we were both so scared we decided that it was too soon and we wouldn't say it again. But it was true I had fallen hard and I didn't know how to handle it.
God had planted a seed in my parents as well. We began to spend every weekend in in Poplar Bluff Missouri. Wth jay and his family.
We shared our first kids on his front porch I'm our favorite porch swing, made for his parents.
My parents decided to move to poplar bluff and I couldn't be happier. The first few months were hard. He was young and immature and scared of love. But I was set on it and I fought hard.
Eventually I won him over and we became insepretalble. We were always together. Before school, during, after, the weekends, church we were always together and when we wernt we were on the phone or texting or Iming.
We took care of each other. He opened my door and I fixed his plates at dinners. To any one looking in we looked like an old married couple. But we were not married and we were young and put stress on the relationship. We started bickering and fighting a lot. And the relationship was hanging together by threads. He finnally broke it off. And then we went through a whole different season figuring out how not to be what we were. It wasn't working very well. We kept up the intamate relationship we never should have had which put even more strain on what was left of what we had. He met someone else and moved on. I tried but never could. He hurt me a lot. Drug my heart through the mud time and time aging trough this transmission period but my heart was still set on what was in front of it. This time I around I didn't have a fight left in me. I had never before felt a pain like that of looseig someone you loved. I had never cried so much. It was a physical pain. And I that point if it was a choice I would have choosen not to love him. And now a year and a half later. Now that he has moved on and is happily married I would choose not to love him. But still everyday I find my self drifting away to memories of those days or wondering where he is and what he is doing. I'm a thousands of miles away but my heart is still in Poplar bluff mo. And believe me if love was a choice. I would choose to forget that I ever loved him at all. But it's not a choice....
