Anyway, Michelle inspired me to share about how I came about knowing that it was time to get le married, except I suck at these sort of things, but since I just can't say no to someone so beautiful (hehe), here goes.
So when we first started dating, I could say that marriage was the last thing on my mind. In fact Michelle was fresh out of a super hurtful relationship and to be honest I just wanted to keep my distance to (selfishly) not get hurt in the same way. Luckily God had other plans to circumvent my stupidity and we democratically came to the conclusion to start dating.
Life went by as usual, we had the honeymoon phase, and then we had a couple small fights, and fell into the routine of trying to build a relationship around our lives, which is probably the hardest thing to do. I was always busy, and Michelle was unemployed waiting to go into nursing school. This meant that I was always too tired to do anything, and she had a lot of time on her hands, and wanted to do stuff.
This led to us having a major, major fight where we were about to break up, but again God gave me a slap upside the head and we both decided to try to put Him in the forefront instead of us and our selfishness. Mentally this was the turning point for me because instead of putting myself first and trying to work Michelle into my life (or work myself into her life), we were both putting God first and catching bits of life as it streamed by.
The side effect of this was that I started going to the Men's Group at church, and as a couple we both started going to Path Fellowship as well. The topic of Men's Group at the time was a series of talks about our problems and how God's and the community He provides for us are ultimately there to help you grow into a better disciple of Christ. What that did for me was help me see what a great group of people God had placed in my life, Michelle especially, because she was (and still is) willing to suck up her selfishness and turn to God for strength (instead of me). Path Fellowship provided the perfect setting to get the idea of marriage started because we were just getting to know each other in the group by sharing testimonies, and on the off week we started doing a series on God's intention for relationships. Naturally as we were watching the series and the pastor (Voddie Baucham) was preaching, I found myself checking off the list of things that she needed to be and be willing to do (according to the bible). The second talk was on what the man needed to be and needed to do in order to fulfill his role in a God centered relationship, and again, I found myself checking off the list. A weekend or 2 later Michelle and I were just talking about our relationship and our goals, etc, and I realized that waiting to be "ready" for marriage was never really going to ever come. Further thought of my financial situation led to the conclusion that if I didn't have the ability to trust in God now, when would I ever? So I sucked it up and started looking at how stupidly expensive diamonds are (seriously, who prices this stuff).
At around Christmas time last year, I also got baptized, which symbolized my (finally) dedicating my life to God, and as such I saw it as a new beginning to give up my self to the Lord and His plan for my life. Somewhere along the line He also saw fit for me to miraculously have just enough money to be able to afford a stupid ring, that luckily (in hindsight) Michelle happened to like. So I waited for just the right moment (her sharing night) before I had to nut up or shut up, and the rest is history.....awkward, awkward history....you have been warned
