A Love Story

Next Wednesday is mine and Brett's three year wedding anniversary and I have been thinking about how blessed I have been to have Brett in my life and to be his wife. Brett is the calming presence in my life, the logical thinker, the planner and the saver. He balances my quirky, impulsive, klutzy ways. He is so patient with me and incredibly gentle. I have never once heard Brett raise his voice to anyone (except for our dog Rocco, and then I kind of laugh because it is really cute).

Brett and I had a whirlwind courtship. We had known each other from high school youth group at Colonial Presbyterian. I was a freshman and he was a senior who was also friends with my brother. While I was in college I would run into him at church occasionally while I was home on breaks or when I interned at the church during summer. The summer before I graduated SBU was my last summer to do an internship at the church. I was the summer staff administrative assistant so I wasn't assigned to any particular group of kids. On Sunday mornings I would go to the single and married young adult class. That was were I started briefly visiting with Brett on occasion. That winter, December 2005, I graduated from SBU, moved back home, started grad school, begin working as a Title I math teacher at the school I currently teach at, and begin to regularly attend that same Sunday school class. The more I started visiting with Brett before class, or when I would listen to him during class, I started developing a "little crush" on him. I remember one day when he was talking to another girl before class my heart started to sink. Silly, right?

My "little crush" started to dissolve late spring as I started interviewing for jobs and then once I was hired, I jumped head first into planning for my first class. Brett and I were still friendly to one another in Sunday school class, but I wasn't feeling that "nervous school girl" feeling anymore. Then September came and once again I was smitten again.

Once Sunday after church I stopped to get gas before heading home. I saw Brett's car a few pumps over. I smiled and nodded my head at him. Then he walked over to my car and asked if I had a group of friends that I hung out with on a regular basis. In my mind I was thinking, "Why is he asking me this?" and "Answer him so I don't sound like a pathetic loser!" Before I even answered, he went on to say that he has a group of friends that get together and was wondering if I would like to join them sometime? I said sure and gave him my phone number. (After we were engaged he showed my that he saved that piece of paper!) He called later that week and I met up with Brett and his friends that following Friday.

I quickly realized that this was a set up and that him and his friends don't get together all that often when it became apparent that his was a reunion. Several months into dating he admitted that another friend and him frantically made phone calls all week to get people together!

Brett started calling me regularly and a week later we had our first date. We dated the remainder of September, October and November. I spent Thanksgiving with his family, and then he met my dad a few days later. I was living with my mom while we dated so Brett got to know her early on. It was in December that Brett and I started to talk about marriage and I knew that he was the one for me. Brett took my parents out to dinner and asked for their blessing to marry me. On December 29th, Brett asked me to marry him, only four months after we started dating.

Our courtship was fast but it was also incredibly sweet and tender too. Brett pursued me with purity. He always asked to hold my hand and it wasn't until the night that we got engaged that we shared our first kiss. I remember that fall of 2006 with such fondness. The following summer we were married on July 21, 2007 at the church were it all began, Colonial Presbyterian. We laugh when we explain to people that we re-connected, started dating, got engaged and then married in under a year, a little more than 10 months to be exact. But we both knew early in our courtship that we were going to marry each other.

As we head into a new season of our family we realize that we love each other more today than we did three years ago (cheesy yes, but so true). I can't imagine my life without Brett. I feel incredible blessed to be his wife. Three years down, a life time to go...