It was the summer of 1992. Hot Texas days and equally humid evenings. My high school BFF and I were constantly in search of ways to entertain ourselves while she was home from college and before beginning my 4th semester at a local college, we did what most 19/20 year olds did during that era…..go work out at the local fitness center! Yep, our free time pretty much consisted of step aerobics classes followed by a stop at the local frozen yogurt shop. Saturdays were laying out in her back yard followed by a trip to the mall and movies. There were many fun memories that summer as I had gained a lot of independence and was just living “girls just want to have fun” mantra if you can imagine.Looking back, I was in a bit of a rebellion period. I seemed to attract some not-so-great guys and went through a series of pointless relationships. But, much to my surprise, I caught the eye of a certain guy at the gym who was equally shy as he was inconspicuous.Part of our workout routine was making post aerobics laps around the upper track, and each time we passed “the guys weight section” I passed by my future husband (unbeknownst to me). One day another guy made it clear to me that his “friend over there” (yep, quiet one in the corner of the room) was wanting to meet me. I politely said, “who?” We joke about it know, but I honestly never noticed him. His well-meaning friend actually threatened Mike telling him that if he wasn’t going to introduce himself to me that he would just take care of it! Even then, it still took him a couple more weeks to finally approach me, but the rest is what you know as “history”.From our first date he captured my heart. He had such an easy way about him and these ocean-blue eyes that cannot be missed!

I loved that he was so real and uncontrived. Nothing seemed to be about impressing me, but just about getting to know me and making me laugh (which, he STILL cracks
me up). We began a casual relationship, then he went back to A&M the next month and so began our 3.5 year long distance relationship. As time progressed, I knew he was the one for me. He wasn’t as sure, as he was encouraged to “play the field” by well-meaning people.

We ended up getting serious but I always had an unsettled feeling. In the midst of my “rebellion” I was also dating this young, kind, caring man who also wasn’t as serious about Jesus as I wanted to be. I don’t recommend it, however, God who is so rich in mercy, did a miracle. Without going into all the details, we spent 6 months completely broken up. I spent that time getting my heart right again with God while he was going through some hard stuff too with his family. What I found out 5 months into this was that Mike’s sweet Mom was battling cancer again and was very ill and in the hospital. It was during this time that God began to do a separate work in Mike’s heart as he was being drawn to His Father’s heart through it all. We ended up reconciling and were engaged on Valentine’s day that year and married 3 months later. God is so GOOD!

 

Sadly, the week of our wedding, we learned that his mom’s cancer had spread to her brain. She was scheduled to have surgery to have it removed 2 days after our wedding! Selfless as she was, she insisted she would be in an induced coma anyway (her thought was, I will be asleep and not know if you are here) for 4 days so by all means, “Go on your honeymoon!” Which we did, and honestly, it was the rest and joy we needed to begin our new adventure. We came back ready to fight along with her as a team.

Rich in mercy, God supplied all we needed and grew Mike to become an amazing leader in our marriage during the issues with his Mom’s health. We ended up moving in with his parents during his mother’s last months of life. I recall waking up one night and seeing Mike in the wee hours of the morning , leaning over his mother’s hospital bed in the dimly lit dining room, reading Scriptures to her.

He spoke a beautiful eulogy at her memorial service. That young college kid, whom I met working out at the gym, was transformed into something so beautiful I wept in gratitude at the work I witnessed the Lord doing in his heart.

Since then we have experienced so much joy and adventure in our marriage. We’ve also endured   more heartache with losing my mom and our little boy, Marshall in the following 10 years…. Even then, God has blessed us with 6 sons who are so full of life and teach us so much more than we could have imagined!

I am blessed beyond measure. Through it all, I have seen how God works in our hearts when we are simply seeking His purpose in our lives, open to the blessings He wants to give, and just loving Him and each other.

 

Mike and I have been married now for almost 18 years (been sweethearts for almost 23!) and fall in love more and more each day. It really
does get sweeter.

This guest post was written by Andrea Studt, devoted wife, mother, and homeschool teacher. Join us for more romantic stories all week long during our How We Met series on Messy Mom.com 

I’m Kailei.

He’s Brad.

And we are two best friends in love.

We might as well start from the very
beginning…

and then we will fast forward to the here and
now.

Brad and I met in Preschool.

Really.

We were instantly best friends… mainly
because I insisted on such!

One day, I noticed that Brad was playing with
another little girl.

I wasn’t okay with that.

So I walked up to him and said “Brad, I
need to talk to you!!”

He obediently followed me away from
Allie.

“You can’t play with other girls
anymore.”

Again, Brad agreed.

Some may say that this is where my bossy
nature began. I choose to call it life planning.

And our life-long friendship began.

 We moved on to Kindergarten and were blessed to be in the same class. 

I’m on the left. Brad’s on the right.

Apparently, I let Brad have more friends once
we reached Kindergarten.

Throughout elementary school, we remained
great friends.

Brad is Swedish, and each year he chose a
friend to play St Lucia as he told about the history. I got to do it in 3rd grade.

 We both ran for Student Body Historian
in 6th Grade.

And Brad beat me.

I’m not still bitter or anything

And then Junior High came. You know that
awkward age where you’re trying to figure out who you are and where you fit in?
When you want to make sure that you get to sit at the “cool kid’s
table” during lunch? When you want people to start noticing who you
are?

We sort of grew apart.

Then one day, we realized that we really
missed each other.

That it was silly to not be friends.

And then it was just like old times
again.

In 9th grade, we ran for Student
Council.

This time, I made sure that we ran for different offices.

And we both won.

We thought we were pretty cool.

Once we started in to high school, I think
that everyone knew that we really liked each other. A lot.

But neither of us would admit such things. We
were best friends. That was all.

The day I turned 16 was the day of the big homecoming
game.

I was so happy that I would be old enough to
go.

I really hoped that Brad would ask me.

And he did!! We were each other’s first date.

Maybe it sounds weird; maybe a 16 year old
doesn’t know such things,

but something about that date just felt right.
It just felt good.

It wasn’t awkward or weird at all.

It was perfect.

But then things got weird.

We started going on dates more and more often
and we were together all of the time.

It was fun, but we were getting worried. We
didn’t want a steady boyfriend/girlfriend.

We were discouraged from having steady
boyfriends/girlfriends and didn’t want

 to go
against what we felt was right.

Could two people who really liked each other
just be best friends?

So instead of rationally talking it out and
making sure that we were just friends, I cut things off completely. I still
remember the night that I explained all of that to Brad

and basically told him that I couldn’t see him
as much.

 He cried.

I felt like scum.

For about a year, we didn’t really see much of
each other.

I hated it.

And then, just like in Jr. High, we realized
that we really missed each other,

and became best friends again.

But it was different this time. More
cautious.

We had many common interests…

though Brad now claims that lots of them were
my interests that he jumped on board with.

We really liked American Idol, and even went
to an Idols Live concert.

We are both very musical and did Choir and
Orchestra.

We were able to go on a trip to Washington
D.C. with our music groups and it was a blast!

And we graduated from High School!!

Before we graduated, Brad already had a call
to serve an LDS church mission in Nicaragua.

He was off to South America, and I was off to
college.

Brad and I wrote every now and again, but
nothing serious.

I knew that he was loving his mission and
serving the Lord with all of his heart.

I knew that he was a great missionary.

Meanwhile, I was loving university life. I
loved going to institute and learning more about the gospel. I loved meeting
new friends and I really loved the education that I was receiving.

 I dated a lot while Brad was gone.

I dated good guys. But something was always
holding me back.

I wanted to serve a mission, but when I prayed
about it, it didn’t feel right.

I was sad, but listened.

Brad got home and we started dating
exclusively a few months after he returned.

Something didn’t feel right.

I was devastated. I had always thought that it
would work out once we were older.

The day before I broke up with Brad, I felt
that it was time.

I could now serve a mission.

We broke up.

Brad asked if it was forever.

I said yes.

I received my mission call to Argentina and I
could not have been happier!

My mission was definitely the most amazing
experience I had had up to that point.

It was wonderful to be able to serve the Lord
100% of the time

and not worry about anything else.

Again, Brad wrote every now and again, but not
often. He went to school.

He dated a lot. But he didn’t get
married.

Coming home, I was nervous to see him. I
didn’t know what would happen, if anything.

After all, I had told him I wasn’t interested
in dating again.

Only problem was, I was interested.

But would he be?

The first time I saw him again, I got that
tingly feeling. Something felt good. Right.

And I knew then that I would marry him.

Luckily, he was feeling something too.

We began dating very soon thereafter.

 Our first date after the mission was a
“thrifty ball.”

I taught Brad how to make Argentine Empanadas.

Basically, we just had a lot of fun. There
were moments where I had little “freak outs.”

I had only been home a few weeks when we
started dating exclusively.

That didn’t seem normal.

We were already talking about marriage.

That was fast!

I knew that it was right, but I just couldn’t
move forward.

Then, I went on a trip with my family.

And I missed Brad terribly.

I knew I couldn’t be without him.

So we got engaged.

And 5 months to the day of me returning home
from Argentina,

we were sealed for all eternity.

Thanks to Darby Elizabeth
Photography for the amazing
pictures!!

We don’t remember life without each other

and now we won’t ever have to.

We now live in Utah where Brad is attending
law school.

We have been married for a year and a half and
are expecting our first baby!

This year and a half has been a blast and we
are loving every moment we have together.

We aren’t perfect,

but we are perfect for each other.

For 28 years I always heard common clichés like, “You’ll find the one when you least expect it” or “Don’t go looking for love, let it come to you.” When I began graduate school, meeting a man, dating, and marriage where not what I was expecting nor what I was searching for. The dread of working full time while putting myself through school, writing papers, and late night studying consumed me as I attended my first class of grad school, Lifespan Development which now seems ironic. In the same class was Cameron, one of all four guys in that class… and one of only a hand full of men in the program for that matter. We were both beginning our graduate school journey towards becoming professional counselors. He sat a row ahead of me, constantly glancing at the clock anxiously waiting for the class to end.

Change began to happen one night during a group presentation. The activity was to list your negotiables, the values and beliefs there were flexible in a potential relationship, and non-negotiables, the values and beliefs that needed to be exactly matching for the relationship to be viable. We then compared it to the list of the man assigned to the group of 4 or 5 women. Out of five women in my group, my list came out more compatible for a relationship with Cameron than the all others in the group with only 1 category not matching out of 5 negotiable and 5 non-negotiable items. The leader of the exercise joked if there were going to be any love matches from this, but I didn’t think much of the match at that time and wrote it off as an interesting little activity. Later in the semester, Cameron flagged me down in the parking lot near our class one night to introduce himself and talk about our mutual interest in traveling to Peru as I had posted on Facebook about going someday. We made small talk from then on, but lost touch over the Christmas break.

A semester later, we ran into each other on campus. We enjoyed catching up, talking about the new classes we were enrolled in that semester, various theories of counseling, and discussing Viktor Frankle’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” which Cameron had loaned me earlier. Through our conversations, Cameron learned that at the time I was living in a notorious part of town (considered by some) and he expressed interest in coming to visit and checking it out for himself. One weekend in February he came over …and continued to come over every weekend after that (and I mean EVERY weekend)! We enjoyed doing things together like going to a roller derby, shopping in the farmers market, going for hikes and walks, and watching our favorite TV shows (Firefly is the bomb!).

Throughout that spring and summer, Cameron made an effort to come visit every Saturday and even came from his home 47 minutes from mine on Sundays to go to a small church I attended and worked at with the youth group. During that time we did a lot of talking about our background and faith. Cameron often mentions that during this time of our relationship, I really ran him through the ringer of questions and discussions concerning our personal relationship with Christ, general beliefs, and values. Honestly, I would agree with his account of being a 21^st century Spanish Inquisition, but I had waited 28 years and had been on several dates with a wide array of men that after getting to know them I knew were not a good match for me. At first glimpse he didn’t fit the mold of what a “Christian man” looks like from my dreams and expectations … he sure didn’t speak “Christian-ese” or fit the image of the Boaz I was going to marry one day.

We had many discussions about this idea of the “Christian man” and how that can look many different ways. I was battling those ideas that I had in my head and what I was experiencing as a true connection. I even went as far as showing up at his door step fully prepared to end the relationship despite my feelings that this was a genuine, great thing. Ultimately, Cameron proved his heart for the Lord and for me through action and deed.

His relentless pursuit of my heart while daily seeking the heart of God was very evident. When I was in the throes of a dark, depressed, and stressful time, Cameron lovingly supported and comforted me. When I drove over a curb, popped all four tires, bent three rims, and ran over a baby tree late one night, Cameron took off work and came over first thing the following morning to serve me by assisting with the repairs. His thoughts are towards me and shows love in my love languages…quality time and physical touch (Although he argues that my love languages are all five!). His heart is filled with compassion for his friends, family, and the clients that he works with, and as we have discovered he is my “like opposite”. His strengths are my weaknesses and vice versa.

We’re only a year and a half into our marriage but Cameron has embraced his role as husband, protector, provider, and leader of our family (just the two of us and our little fur baby, Seren). We are working hard to honor God with our resources, choices, actions, forming healthy family habits, and planning for the future. However, it isn’t as story book as it may read. There are disagreements and hardships. I have said it is like running the 3 legged race of your life, for life! In the words of Cameron though, the sweet is never as sweet without the bitter…I’m sure he took that from a movie, he always quotes something. I know this though…this man was well worth the wait, not only as my first kiss, but also as the man I would marry and do life with, together