A marriage proposal

If you follow me on Facebook, you may have read my status this morning that talked about my disobedience in blogging. Funny thing to be disobedient in, huh?  But God has asked me for years to be a blogger, in many different ways, and I've mastered the art of excuses.  :P

So here I am, working on obedience, and sitting down to write. And I was thinking, since today is Valentine's Day and all, that I could announce, once again, that I'm ENGAGED to an amazing, wonderful man named Ryan, who is not only loved and adored by both me and my children, but loves and adores us right back.

And following that lovely announcement, what better to write about than the proposal??  :D  Especially since I almost messed the whole thing up in the middle.  ;)  And Ryan, in his calm, laid-back way, took it in stride and said, "Well, that didn't go at all how I thought it would in my head.  But I guess it's just a sign of the life to come!"  Oh, darling, I'm sure we have no idea...

The Proposal

I should start by informing you, reader, that I am a planner, and have a tendency to be a bit stubborn about my plans.  Ryan and I have been together for awhile now, and I had decided that it was about time we started thinking about marriage. ;) I am set on getting married in the summer, since I work and homeschool my kids during the school year.  Ryan and I were both in agreement that we wanted to get married, but he's more of a "take each day as it comes" kinda guy, and my day planner has an exact day for changing our toothbrushes. ;)

Needless to say, although I was sure Ryan would propose at some point, I was pretty confident that if I left him alone about it, the proposal would come too late to plan a wedding for this summer, and I couldn't imagine waiting another year to be married. For starters, I miss that man way to much when we're not together, and between his schedule and mine, we only see each other on weekends.  Boo. :(  Plus, dating is hard when you have 4 kids and all you want to do on the weekend is catch up on housework and take a nap.  ;) I've fallen so behind on my to do list that I don't even make one anymore.  *sigh*

So...I had planned in my mind to somehow nag him encourage him to propose, if he hadn't by Valentine's Day.  If he hadn't by my birthday (end of March), I was going to start crying and take it from there.  Haha.

Last Thursday, Ryan texted me that his mom had given him a gift card to The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant I had been dying to go to, but we're both pretty frugal and The Melting Pot is not cheap. I was SUPER excited to go there for dinner, and not feel guilty about it, and although in my head I thought, "what a perfect date for a proposal!" I honestly bought into the gift card story and looked forward to a yummy dinner.  It was my kids weekend to be with their dad, and Ryan had the whole day off work (a Saturday rarity).  I was looking forward to all that time with him, and The Melting Pot put me right over into dreamy bliss.  :)

I won't bore you with the details of the day, but it involved thrifting (I found some really nice stuff!!), a Netflix marathon, and lot's of junk food while we waited for our 9:15 reservation (ugh!)  We arrived early, hoping to be seated early, and waited in a very cold reception area for 20+ minutes before being seated.

Fast forward an hour and a half.  We thoroughly enjoyed our cheese fondue appetizer, our assortment of meats and veges in a vegetable broth, and were eagerly anticipating the chocolate fondue. This, my friends, is the moment when Ryan had been planning to ask me to marry him.  To pull out a beautiful ring, tell me he loves me, and ask me to be his.  But life never goes the way we plan it, does it?  I take a sip of my Coke, and BAM...Liz feels a pretty nasty migraine taking over her brain.  Looking back, I should have known a few cookies would not hold me off until a 10:00 meal, but I run with a tad bit of denial. Hunger is a huge trigger for me, but I thought I'd be fine.

I immediately swallowed some pain killers, and careful laid my head back against the booth.  By now, the pain was moving into my neck.  And Ryan was inwardly panicking.

But life can be beautiful, even in these messy, unplanned moments, when things feel like they're falling apart and we have no control over a darn thing.  As I laid my head back, I looked over at Ryan.  I thought about how much I had looked forward to this day, and to all of the hours I got to be in his presence and have him all to myself.  I thought about how amazing I think he is, and how much I adore him.  How my kids adore him.  How my heart broke when I surrendered to my divorce, but God held my hand and promised me there was happiness in store.  And slowly, He revealed in my mind this man that couldn't possibly exist because he was way too perfect for my kids and I, but does exist and is sitting right next to me.  A man who calms me and brings me peace when I'm stressed, who loves my kids as much as he loves me.  Who is kind, and caring, and considerate, and loving.  He's even divorced, for about the same amount of time I have been, and for the same reasons.  I cannot explain how huge that is in understanding and relating to each other's scars.  He even has the same love languages I do!  When God promises, He fulfills.  And Ryan is proof in my mind of this.

As I think these things, and the pain in my head is slowly receding, I turn to the man I love and say, "Do you have any idea how much I adore you?"  Cuz he doesn't.  He can't possibly know.  It's too great an amount.

And he says to me, "I adore you, too.  And I love you.  And I don't ever want to lose you."

Suddenly, there is this little black felt bag and the sparkliest of rings protruding from within.  I gasp, and look at the ring, then at Ryan, and back at the ring.  And what sweet words do I utter at this moment?

"But I have a migraine!!"

Someone please stop me.  I'm useless.

And then I apparently said, "No!" because he says, "No?  Or yes??'' And I'm laughing and apologizing and of course it's a yes!  But how did I spend a whole day with this man and not guess what he was up to??  And why did I have to get a migraine in the middle of all of it?!

Because life is a beautiful mess and we just keep moving on.

I wish I could say that my headache went away, but it didn't.  I ate one piece of chocolate covered banana and realized I wouldn't even be able to watch Ryan eat.  Oh, migraines are fun.

But the proposal doesn't end there. In my mind, the last part is equally as good as the main part.  Maybe better.

As we said goodbye later that evening, Ryan looked me in the eyes and with all seriousness said, "I'm never getting divorced again, Liz.  I mean it."  And to test what i already knew, I said, "And what if we're miserable and unhappy?"  With even more seriousness, he replied, "then we work on it."  And this I know we will do.  I knew a month into our friendship that this man would put everything into his next marriage, because he tried so hard to save his first. And he found a woman with the same story, the same fight, the same commitment.

Life is a beautiful mess, but when God is the One writing the story, the beauty outweighs the mess.

Happy Valentine's Day.