June 27, 2012

God's Love Story :: The Burnham Edition

In exactly four weeks I will celebrate my fifth wedding anniversary with my husband, Scott. Our love story may not be as dramatic as the past "God's Love Story" couple - but it was definitely orchestrated by our loving God. I hope you enjoy, as I take reminsce about our meeting and courtship days and finally as I look back on our wedding day.

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I had a plan. I was going to meet my Prince Charming and be married by the age of 21. For some reason, in my mind, if I wasn't married by that age I felt I would never get married. In pursuit to fulfill this dream, on my own, I was dating a young man who wasn't the right fit. We dated for awhile and began seriously talking about marriage. Then things hit a downhill spiral - and fast. He became mean to me, disrespectful to my family, took me from my church and most of all I had allowed the Devil to use him to pull me away from God. I had to get to my lowest point before we finally broke up and with God's help, I began to mend the broken pieces. This was all due to the fact that I had a dream and I was trying to fulfill that dream by myself. There came a point after the break up that I finally "let go and let God". I decided that if God wanted me married by 21, I would be married. If he didn't that was fine too. I was going to let God write my love story. It was only until I had given up full control that my God began writing.

June 30, 2006 was a normal Sunday. My whole family loaded up and went to church Sunday morning, we came home and I'm sure we ate a great lunch and had an even better Sunday nap. We then loaded back up and headed to our church's evening service. I can remember every detail of that service (except the preaching, lol) just like it happened yesterday. We walked into Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church and sat in the same pew that we always sat in. However, on this particular evening a man sat in front of us who heavily smelt like smoke. We didn't want to be rude and cough throughout the whole service, so after our choir sang and it was fellowship time we moved to the back of the auditorium and sat in some overflow seats.

However, I forgot to mention that while we were sitting in the pew a couple of young men all dressed up sat in the overflow seats in the back of the auditorium. They were late and we all know that after the service begins and the doors open everyone looks back and sees who didn't make it on time :) I recognized the one guy as Jon, our Youth Pastor's brother, but didn't recognize the handsome guy who came with him.

Now back to the story ... we just happened to sit right behind the two young men once we moved from our pew. The service continued and all was well. After the service ended, my parents left and I hung around to chit-chat with my friend Leah. Leah, our Pastor's daughter, felt it was her duty to meet all the young men who were visitors ;) This time I decided to tag along. Knowing Jon, we both went and shook his hand and he introduced us to his friend. This was the first time I met Scott. He had the sweetest little smile and all was great in the world. After meeting we all left and headed our separate ways.

The next morning, I arrived at work after not being able to get Scott of off my mind. Leah and I worked together at a daycare and she could tell something was up. I began to tell her that I thought I would like to get to know "Jon's friend" and wondered how I could do that if I didn't know anything about him. That's all Leah needed to hear. She immediately got her cell phone out and began texting Jon for more details.

You must understand that going out of my way to talk to a guy was not normal for me. I was beyond shy in front of boys and wouldn't dream of talking to them first. All I can say is that it was God working. That whole day was filled with texting and giggling. We found out where he was from, what his major was and a whole bunch of minor details. Then the big moment came ... Leah asked me, "Do you want me to give him your number?" Remember, I had never done anything like that in my life! I softly said, "Ok" and she sent it to Jon. He said he would tell him and that's the last I heard ... at least for that day.

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