Estimated reading time: 3 minute(s)

Today is July 16th. It was a great day for me in 1997. I had thought for a long time that a very nice young lady and a great friend of mine, Jen Walker, would be a great life companion. But, many things had gotten in the way of that… especially that part where she told me through tears, “I don’t want to marry you!”

(Now remember, I had not ASKED her to marry me at that point… that was a stand-alone declaration on her part…) 🙂

Well, after four years or so of being Jen’s friend and enjoying any life we got to spend together, we ended up back in Victor, NY. A small little town where her brother had been preaching for 15 years. We were hanging out again … it had been a month and a half since she had returned… and we were at my apartment for a college group meeting which I was leading, and then she stayed after to rehearse for a wedding that we had been asked to sing together in.

(Very interesting, isn’t it? We were not a “couple”.. but we were singing together already! A vision of things to come…) 🙂

So, after listening to Answered Prayer for about the 100-billionth time… we ended up just talking with that on repeat in the background… just enjoying each other’s company… and I told Jen how great it was to have her back where we could see each other as often as possible… hang out like the old days. And I said, it is awesome how at the time, my love for God was growing so much — He was just amazing me at the time… and at the SAME time, my love for her was growing deeper too. She smiled and said something similar back to me and just said she felt like she could trust me with her heart. (Those were words I think she had used before for her future husband – trusting her heart to him…)

So, there was a brief moment of silence, and I said… “That sounds like marriage…” and kinda laughed a bit… Then we both thought, “Yeah… it DOES!”

That was way to wacky for us, so… we thought, let’s think about it some more. We went home that night, excited about what the future could hold… and were together again the next night at an elders’ meeting. After the meeting we decided to go up to Lake Ontario (a nice quiet, cool place) and chat a bit more about what we had been talking about the night previous.

Well, we chatted on the way up… chatted a bit at the beach… and.. we said… SURE! Let’s do it! 🙂 And we decided to talk to our families and make sure we weren’t completely insane… and then we were going to GET MARRIED! 🙂

SO, that’s what July 16/17 means to me. 🙂

I love Jen Campbell. She is my favorite person. I wouldn’t want anyone else by my side. I am so amazingly privileged to be her husband and life-mate… and to say that she is my wife and my friend.

Thanks God for hookin us up some 14 years ago… and some 7 years ago today…. yeeeehaaaa!!! 🙂