I don't mind doing things last-minute, so it was great when Ian called the week before his birthday this year and asked if I'd come visit for the occasion. He bought me a ticket (for his birthday present) and I showed up around midnight the next Thursday night.

Meanwhile, I'd realised that our whole plan for me moving to England wasn't going to work, for visa reasons. As I thought of having to spend another six months apart, I was more upset than I had been in a year...my fairy tale was practically falling apart! I coached myself not to hope for a proposal at such short notice and determined to just enjoy a few days with my "favourite" person in the world and not hope for more. I believed he wanted to wait until we'd lived in the same country for a few months before proposing.

I like a new start as much as the next person. Probably more, actually (whoever the "next person" is). I guess it's just this phase of life...the post-college, pre-family chapters where little things like your job, city (or country) of residence, relationship status, and life goals can and do change fairly often.

About a year ago, I was traveling across Slovakia with my friends, moving back to Kosice, and complaining articulately (or so I thought) about how nothing in my life felt like it had any permanence. I couldn't be more useless at yardwork, but I ventured a gardening metaphor, anyway. I claimed that it could not possibly be healthy to plant and re-plant and re-pot the same little flower again and again. Some of the roots get ripped off every time. (I think.)

Like so many others, I've moved every three to six months for the past three years (since college): Harrisonburg, Richmond, (random month of travel in Europe--no complaints there!), Montana, Richmond, Kosice, Bratislava, Kosice, Richmond, Kosice. I didn't know what to expect when I moved back here, but I remember thinking that it was impossible to maintain any normal, deeper relationships when I kept getting uprooted like this.

And yet here I sit, getting ready to move again. And, to be honest, I couldn't be more thrilled about it! This winter, I remember my best friend (whose past 3 years have been a lot crazier than mine) telling me that she'd decided not to move again unless she knew some people in her new location. I thought that sounded wonderful, as I am sick of always feeling like the new person everywhere I go. But, that was probably too much to ask of God. Why even bother? I think we were in London when we had this conversation. And as I remembered all the amazing things God has done in my life over the last three years, I silently uttered two prayers that seemed selfish and, let's be honest, didn't have a lot of faith attached to them. The only thing I was sure of was that these were two very deeply heartfelt requests, and I couldn't even completely explain why I wanted these things so badly.

I prayed that I wouldn't ever have to move to a new place alone again. And I prayed that, someday, even if it was 50 years from now, even if it was only for 3 months, I could please, please live in England again.

About four days later, I met the answer to both of these requests.
(If you don't know who I'm talking about, see the last six posts.)


Um, wow.

I hope that every time I doubt God's ability to hear me, God will remind me of this incredible answer to prayer. Because, despite my whining about change last year, this actually IS what I want: yet another big change. Perhaps the biggest one yet. ;)

I shall keep you updated...

The reverse chronological order of blogs is nice, but my fairy tale needs to be read from start to finish, not the reverse. Scroll down to part 1 and no peeking!! ;)

Tim finally acquiesced to Becca's requests that we hang out with Ian again on my last full day in Cheltenham. I felt the usual mixture of gratitude, frustration, and nervousness one feels when one knows that one is being set up as we waited for Tim to bring Ian over.

"At least he's cute," I thought as Ian got out of what should have been the driver's side of Tim's car. The boys sat up front as we drove to some mall in Bristol. Unless you're a teenager, there is absolutely nothing romantic about a shopping mall, but I really can't describe what happened in there that day. I went in there awkwardly trying to figure out how to be polite without leading this guy on (after all, any fool could see it would never work). I came out with the most comfortable yet thrilling beginnings of a crush I'd ever felt.

Becca had obviously tipped this guy off, I thought (I later found out that Ian hadn't had a clue about Becca and Tim's hopes for us). He asked me all day about myself and seemed to remember every little thing I said better than I did. He was clever and funny and bought me lunch and a "mocka" (funny British pronunciation of "mocha").

That night back at Tim's, Ian asked me if I would like to meet up with him in London the following day. (Cute accent + invitation to my favourite city = yes). I told Ian I'd have to ask Tim, since he would be giving me a ride. "No problem, I've already talked to Tim and it's all sorted," he replied. What would he have done if I'd said "no," I wondered.

My good-bye to Becca the next day was sad (I'd be flying out of London the following morning and didn't know when I'd see her again), but overflowing with joyful expectations--who would've dared hope for such a perfect ending to our little fairy-tale trip?



A couple hours later, Ian was telling me that he was "very intrested" in me and I was noticing how blue his eyes were. He bought me another dinner, though he himself didn't eat anything (he was too nervous, I found out later). At the breathtakingly romantic Victoria Coach Station, just before boarding his ride back to Cheltenham, Ian told me he thought I was amazing...and he liked me...and how I should move to the UK so that he could get to know me better.

I was so speechless that I couldn't even think of the word speechless: "Um, I don't usually not know what to say, but, um, yeah, that sounds nice." Ian seemed encouraged by my incredibly articulate reply and hugged me good-bye. It was the best-feeling hug of my life. "I've only seen him three times, and already I don't want to let go," I thought.

For the second night in a row, pure exhaustion was the only thing that propelled me to sleep, and my surging adrenaline woke me long before my 5am shuttle to the airport. Everyone has heard that when you fall in love, you can't eat or sleep, and I'd always dismissed this as mildly ludicrous. I can now testify that it is not.



(Epilogue)

Three weeks and countless hours of skype conversations later, Ian asked if he could come visit me in Slovakia in four days' time. I checked with my team and told him that it would work--then I promptly came down with a nasty flu. That Sunday, Ian asked me to be his girlfriend and, across the ocean, Tim asked Becca to become his wife. Obviously, we both said yes!

About a day after Ian left Slovakia, I had to decide whether to stay in Slovakia for another year and a half or move to England that summer. After considerable prayer, I chose the latter option. I leave August 1.

Last week, Ian and I walked in the aisle of a very pretty Gothic church while my parents and lots of other people watched. No, we're not married, silly, you don't walk in with your man. We were bridesmaid/groomsman in Becca and Tim's gorgeous wedding!

So, stay tuned. Who knows what the next chapter could hold...? ;)

One day, we decided to explore Gloucester Cathedral, which I'd wanted to see even before it was the Great Hall in the Harry Potter films. For a girl whose college art final self-portrait was a drawing of me as part of a Gothic Cathedral, visiting one of England's largest was a real treat.

Somewhere between a lecture on the Perpendicular style and a peek at medieval lavatories, Tim got a text from his friend, Ian, saying that he (Ian) had just found out he was losing his job. I felt sorry for the guy, or as sorry as you can feel for someone you've never met. Apparently, this guy had encouraged Tim quite a bit to go ahead and pursue Becca, so he was obviously a good guy.

That night, Becca, Tim, and I went downtown to meet a few more of Tim's friends. As it turned out, the most significant meeting of my life did not take place in a Gothic Cathedral, on a mountaintop, or in a castle. It took place in a little pub in Cheltenham and I wasn't wearing a fancy dress or anything fancy at all, for that matter. I was wearing an over-sized old man's sweater that I'd picked up for $1 at a Goodwill in Mississippi as a Christmas gift for my brother. My brother had kindly refused it.

I met a guy in skinny jeans and a fedora and then Becca promptly sat down in between us. So, this couldn't have been the one, could it? We didn't talk much, but it turned out that the stylish guy was Ian, one of Tim's best friends. I admired the way he handled the news about his job, though he was obviously not happy about the loss. I found myself wondering later that night what I would've said to him about losing his job if he was my guy. As a brand-new acquaintance, I couldn't say much more than "sorry," but I wished I could do more... Then I realized what I was doing and kicked myself back into reality to finish reading the 34th chapter of Ezekiel and go to sleep.



The following days were full of lots more charming English atmosphere, punctuated by Becca daily, pointedly asking Tim when we'd be able to hang out with Ian again. "Give up," I wanted to say. While I appreciated her efforts on my behalf, I knew that just because a guy makes a point of talking to me doesn't mean he's interested in me beyond the end of our conversation, no matter how sincere he appears. I stomped on my hopes, put him out of my head, and threw myself back into my fight for contentment.


I guess Saturday was the day I finally got my miracle...

Six days after Tim went back to England, Becca and I boarded a plane with seats that turned out to be miraculously next to each other (even though we'd booked through separate travel agents and on separate days)! I spent the next three days enthusiastically boring her with every historical fact I could possibly remember about my favorite city. It was so much fun!



Now Becca, being the wonderful friend that she was, had gotten descriptions of one or two of Tim's single friends and then asked me what I thought of guys who fit that description. And then, hilariously, she had asked me to forget that she'd just asked me what I thought of stylish British guys who wore skinny jeans.

I say this to explain why I stared at the ground while meeting most of Tim's friends over the next week and a half. I wasn't actually looking at the floor, I was checking out how stylish their shoes were and if their jeans were skinny at the ankles, of course!

But more than that, I was trying to get my hopes back down where they belonged. I'd spent two years in Slovakia, and two months in America without any guys being really seriously interested in me. My dad had told me the problem was that no guy was gonna go after a girl who was just getting ready to leave the country, and I knew I had no prospects in Slovakia. Yet I knew that God wanted me to go back to Slovakia. While I do like living here in Slovakia, what do you do when having your deepest human desire met seems to be in direct conflict with what God wants for your life?

Well, I spent the next week going around Cheltenham (where Tim lives) and the same Cotswolds I'd seen with my mom and co. eight years earlier. Much as I love Becca, I couldn't help but be a little bit jealous...this was the happy ending my soul had always longed for. I suppose the next best thing to getting your life's dream is watching your best friend get it. So, I just kept reminding myself that this was not my life and I needed to focus on being happy about getting to at least share this little chapter of her amazing story with her.




And I was really, truly thrilled for her. But that didn't stop me staring at the ground every time I met one of Tim's friends...

Having effectively sworn off dating for a time, Becca and I stayed in pretty close touch over the first six or so months that I was in Slovakia. Our communication was then hampered by the quality of the internet (bad) once she moved to Mozambique.

We were both fighting some feelings of loneliness and I was trying to figure out what to do with my recently broken heart when I discovered a website that you should probably check out as soon as you are done reading this: www.boundless.org. It changed my perspective on relationships and gave me a much more Biblical outlook on the whole dating/courtship/engagement thing.

Meanwhile, Becca was trying really hard not to like a friend of a friend named Tim who had come out to the center for three weeks that fall. As soon as I found out the guy was British, I knew she was on to something good (ok, the fact that he was into missions work was also a good clue.)

The next nine to twelve months passed with me taking two steps forward and one step back in the process of healing my heart and Becca doing her best to protect hers. After all, everyone knows those long-distance, long-term internet relationships never turn into anything, right? Mine sure hadn't.

The following fall found me with a heart that finally felt whole again and Becca with a wonderful Englishman who--miracle of miracles--turned out to like her very much indeed! I went home for furlough late that fall and hoped and prayed and watched and waited and counted the days with Becca til her new leading man would come visit.

Oh, and we planned. Boy did I ever plan! We planned for the trip to England I'd wanted to take for at least six years: a earth-shatteringly awesome adventure to my "favourite" island with my best friend, made at least a million times better by the assurance of romance (at least on her end) since she was to meet up with her knight in shining armor during our time there!



Being a gentleman, Tim visited Becca first and I was determined to make a good impression for her sake. I was way too excited about the whole thing, though, and I'm sure I talked much more than I had any right to. By the time I got home I was so giddy that my mom had to ask me just how much I'd had to drink that night. This is always slightly embarrassing, especially if all you've had is two glasses of water.

While I said good-bye to my chances of Becca's new boyfriend thinking I was cool enough to set up with one of his cute, British friends, I put my energy into planning this trip, which was sure to be life-changing. Well, for Becca at least.

I had no idea that the next miracle would be mine...