In October 2011, I flew to Texas to find a wife. Really I didn’t. But I did meet Shanna at a Bible study at one of the professor’s at the university I was investigating’s house. At the time, it was a mostly insignificant crossing of our paths. After I flew back to NC, I added her and anybody else whose name I remembered from the school on Facebook, and later I used that to ask one of her friends, who I remembered actually talking to, questions about the housing options at the school. When I started going to the school, I saw her singing in chapel, since she was one of the few people whose name I knew, I greeted her by name and got a confused response.
A few days later I ran into her when I went swing dancing for the very first time. There were five students from GIAL there and we had come as 2-2-1, none of us knowing of the other’s plans. I danced with every one of them, showing off all my left feet and both of the spins I’d just learned. Despite my terrible clumsiness, dancing with Shanna just felt right somehow; she was the only one I could actually pull off the “pull her back in close from the spins” thing with without being totally awkward. It’s worth mentioning that these chance encounters at Bible studies and random “feels right” moments are not the foundation of our relationship, but they’re cool to look back on.
Over the next several weeks our paths crossed a lot; we both sat outside the library and studied; we sat at the student table at lunch; we actually planned to go dancing again with friends, and then as just the two of us. During that time we got to know each other a good bit; we bonded a little bit over both having four siblings and not thinking that was weird, over books and surely over other things which I can’t remember when I noticed; she stood me up on the giant 30th birthday party I threw; and I made some assumptions about her based on our family sizes, backgrounds, feelings about that, and her taking on babysitting the adult, handicapped child of a family here; assumptions that eventually led to some of our most interesting sorting out conversations.
She shared some of her writing, some of her dreams, her fascinations and I became fascinated. I realized that she had a special smile, one most easily seen when she was already being fabulous – spinning with her hair flying around her as we danced – one that I knew for sure I’d do anything to see again and again. Our paths crossed more and more intentionally, we would be the last two people at the student table at lunch, by 30 minutes, and I made sure to sit near her from the start. Knowing she knew Russian, I looked up how to say, “You’re beautiful,” and told her this when we next went dancing. Of course, I didn’t know enough Russian and was too embarrassed to ask, so I think I messed up the conjugation, and it was loud, and she had no idea I was trying to tell her something in Russian, but after yelling it into her ear on the dance floor she finally got it – and had no idea how to respond. I’m not really sure what response I was really going for.
Eventually, I got around to seeing if she’d like to go hiking on the trails behind the school, and after a much belated start as I left her sitting alone in the cafeteria for a good while because I wasn’t feeling well, we went for this hike. It probably took me at least half an hour to get around to asking her if she was interested in dating, right when we got to a nice hilltop with a shelter, seat and a good view – seemed appropriate, I totally planned that spot. Shanna responded with all the clarity of an encoded telegram in a foreign language and we walked some more and talked about the differences in our ages and experience. Later that day we played Frisbee and then she was coming to the dorm since I was making dinner for everybody; before we parted I told her if she needed more time to think about dating, I understood and I wouldn’t push her on it. She told me, “O, I was saying yes back there.” So Shanna has been dating me for about three hours longer than I’ve been dating her.
Through all that, we’d had a lot of great conversations, about all kinds of things, including Christianity, the Bible, everything we believe – but almost as soon as we started dating, Shanna asked that we do something to really center our relationship on God. That was a real joy for me to hear, because I hadn’t really known how to navigate, I guess, spiritual initiative in dating; something different, but not entirely different than leadership which wasn’t a role I was in. We decided to start going through the gospel of John, and this become a foundation and best part of our relationship, something that made us consider and talk about a range of Biblical topics and helped us really learn where we each were. Through that study, we learned that we had differences, some bigger, some smaller – but we largely figured out that we could live with the differences.
Shanna took a job near home, in Houston, in the spring and so most of our relationship has been long distance. Gas is expensive, we are very thankful for a bus between Dallas and Houston that has meant that we’ve seen each other every few weeks and haven’t gone bankrupt in the process. We’re huge fans of video chat and have greatly benefited from being able to talk, do Bible study, pray, argue (rarely), or from just sort of having it on while going about life (pretending to be in the same place).
- Second Renaissance Faire
We went to renaissance faire twice, once near Dallas, once near Houston – a new experience for me – and I enjoyed that, it was fun to express creativity together and enter into a different world for a while. She introduced me to Dr. Who, and general nerdiness abounds between us, to our mutual delight. Our more serious conversations were often helped by the use of Soularium, a Campus Crusade collection of pictures that helps you use visual answers to questions in order to explore what you’re thinking about differently. Even without that, one of the greatest parts of our relationship is the ability to spend hours in conversation. When Shanna came to NC to visit over Christmas, we drove to DC to see a friend and the Smithsonian and Capitol; we realized when we got there that we’d talked for the entire five hour drive almost without a break. But our long conversations can be prompted by anything, it’d be fascinating perhaps if we could chart the mental and conversational tangents that our days of talking have taken us on.
- Learning horsemanship
I’ve been able to stay with Shanna’s family whenever I’ve visited, I’m glad that I’ve gotten the chance to see them and her interact and interact with them – I’m comfortable with how I see them together and with the assumptions about life that I see guiding their family, things that have been engrained as Shanna’s assumptions. I got to go with her entire family, including some extended family, to a cabin in the woods for their Thanksgiving tradition and realized that our favorite holidays (and the one that we want to be with our own family) work out since I’m a Christmas guy. I also had a great time wrestling her brother and dad then.
Every moment wasn’t perfect, I had some nagging doubts about our relationship that came and went, mostly around summer and early fall. A few times during that we decided to stop contact for a little while in order to clear our heads and try to gain some perspective. We realized that we had no desire to walk away from the relationship, that we were best friends, that we valued sharing all the little and big things of life, that we wanted to share our spiritual journey with one another, that we sometimes had the wrong ideas, expectations or were selfish, we realized very strongly that we were committed to loving the other. That sense grew, and was confirmed through the winter months even as we adjusted to the idea that we were sinners who didn’t always meet each other expectations or fit our preconceived molds exactly.The Puzzle
- The proposal puzzle
On a delightfully warm, sunny day in January I took Shanna to a tree house where months ago she’d picked the picture of the bride in answer to my question, “What do you see yourself being in my life?” (Disclaimer: this wasn’t what it sounds like, ask Shanna if you want to know what it really meant, but I think it sounds great here.) 🙂 There I had her do a puzzle composed of pictures of myself in places meaningful to our relationship that were over a background of a great picture of us. As she did the puzzle I had her pull out the pictures from the puzzle that I’d had printed. I wrote a lot of “because you…” sorts of things on the back of them. Only when she completed the puzzle did she realize there were pieces missing. I asked her to stand up to read it, and kneeling there asked her to marry me. Then I presented her with a puzzle box containing her ring and some of the remaining pieces (the ones to complete the background picture of us). Apparently, somewhere one of the puzzle pieces went missing because we couldn’t find it that day, Shanna is convinced that I hid it as a sign that I’ll drive her crazy.
I’ve skipped over a lot in the middle, there are a ton of memories, shared experiences, long walks, joys from that time – but I want to wrap this up. I love Shanna, and I’m thrilled to be committing to spend the rest of my life with a woman who strives so hard to apply what she believes to her life, who is as creative and fun as she is, who understands me as well as she does, who is willing to love me despite all my remaining sin and help me tackle it with grace, and whose love for God overflows into such abundant love and joy in everything.
Vows:
I, Benjamin, take you, Shanna, as my crown, my fountain of joy, my wife. I will love and hold fast to you, giving authority of my body over to you as we become one. I will nurture and cherish you as my own body, being anxious to please you in all things. I will secure our household on Jesus Christ as our cornerstone and will lead in its growth into a holy temple and dwelling place for God. I pledge to give and to seek forgiveness seventy times seven times, without harshness, and to live with you in an understanding way, showing you honor as an heir with me of the grace of life. This I will do until one or both of us finish this life’s vaporous race and are united – finally, fully and eternally to Christ.