God’s timing is a mysterious thing and it doesn’t always make sense. However, sometimes it is very clear when you reflect on situations in your life.

My husband and I first met when we were in 6th grade. We grew up in the same town and went to school together from middle school through high school graduation. His assigned seat on our school bus was the one right in front of mine. My earliest memories of our friendship are of me poking his head through the gap between the seat and the window to wake him up.

I love our story. Not because it is movie-worthy or because it is incredibly sweet (though it’s the sweetest in my very biased opinion). I love it because it points to the faithfulness and redemptive power of Jesus Christ. When I reflect on our story, it reminds me I can always trust God’s timing.

Our story has a happy ending, but a messy middle. Only by the grace of God did we end up here, and only by His strength and provision are we building a strong, joyful marriage.

The Early Years

We were good friends for all of middle and high school. Looking back now, I can see we had a connection that neither of us truly understood. We gravitated toward one another like magnets. We were both too busy fighting spiritual battles that we didn’t see the significance of this.

My husband was battling keep his faith strong despite suicidal thoughts and a pornography addiction, and I was battling abuse at home and in my relationships. My faith consisted of nothing more than a faint belief in a higher power. Friends dragged me to church left and right, but my heart was so hardened by my circumstances I couldn’t hear the truth of the Gospel.

After high school graduation, we both went off to college. We stayed in the same area but went to separate schools. I continued fighting my battles while he worked to overcome his. My identity was a mystery and my home was void of love or warmth. Believing I didn’t deserve any better, I looked for the affection I deeply desired by dating and letting myself be mistreated.

Just before my freshman year was over, I hit rock bottom and decided to move away to get a fresh start. I set myself up to transfer to another school about an hour and a half away and live with one of my best friends. It seemed like my heart would heal by changing my environment.

So, I swore off dating to focus on my mental health and started packing.

Reunited By Trees

My world was rocked one day shortly after I set those boundaries for myself. God’s timing is funny like that.

I was helping my little sister practice for softball when I heard a man’s voice saying my name. I turned around and Mark was standing behind the fence at the back of our yard. This dumbfounded us both.

I asked him what he was doing there and he told me he lived there! His backyard was the one directly behind mine and had been for about 8 years but neither of us had any idea. There used to be a long line of pine trees that separated our yards, but his dad decided to cut them down that summer.

We started catching up, completely blown away by what we had discovered. 3 hours passed before we realized it.

We began casually meeting up at the fence pretty regularly and going on runs together, as friends. He even invited me to his church and I attended with him a few times.

Eventually, during one of our long conversations at the fence, he convinced me that I needed to see the new Transformers movie and offered to take me that night. I said no, thinking it was a casual offer to see a movie I didn’t really have a lot of interest in. But he kept asking, even after we had parted ways at the fence. He texted me about 50 more times asking me to go, so I gave in and said “yes.”

We got along so smoothly and casually, I wasn’t even sure it was a date until the end of the movie when he held my hand. I had no idea what he was doing because I had never been so intentionally pursued before.

Setting Boundaries

That first date was July 3rd of 2011. We began to spend more time together and entered into a dating relationship that summer. However, before we officially became a couple, he slowed us down with a boundary I was not expecting.

He told me he cared for me and wanted to pursue a dating relationship with the intention of marriage (whoa) and that he needed to be sure my relationship with Christ was solid first (double whoa). I never experienced someone telling me so clearly what they wanted out of a relationship. He told me he had dated someone and her relationship with Christ was anchored on him, not on God. He insisted that he wasn’t going to let that happen again.

Looking back, I so appreciate his integrity and honesty during the beginning of our relationship. His boundary allowed me to wrestle with my faith outside of a dating relationship and figure out what I really wanted.

I attended church with him that following Wednesday and surrendered my heart back to the Lord. Shortly after that, we officially began dating. We got engaged 1.5 years later and got married in October of 2013.

The Power of Redemptive Grace

I’d love to tell you that my relationship with God and with my husband went as smoothly as that sounded, but I would be lying to you.

I brought a lot of shame, guilt, and baggage into that dating relationship. I wrestled with being vulnerable and showing him all my past sin, so I avoided the topic for a while. Eventually, we had “the talk” where I laid my entire past out for Mark to see. He knew some of it already because high schools are places where secrets don’t’ last long, but there was a lot that he didn’t.

You can read more about the details of my testimony here, but in short, I experienced repeated sexual trauma as a child and I was not a virgin when we got together. Mark got all of the details and responded with nothing but grace and empathy. He told me was so sorry that something so awful had happened to me. There was no judgment or disappointment in his voice.

He told me how much he cared about the person I had become and that my choices from then on is what mattered, not where I came from. His response helped me see how much God loved me and how badly He wanted me to stop letting my past define me.

I struggled for a long time after that to let God heal me. Forgiving myself for everything I did wrong in response to my pain was so hard. But over and over, Mark pointed me to God and reminded me that I couldn’t change my past, but I could stop it from hindering my present and our future.

God’s Timing

Mark and I knew each other for many years before we ever started dating. We were close friends and unknown neighbors. We grew up in the same town; our hearts could have come together at any point during those years, but neither of us were ready yet.

We needed to grow up and work through all that we were struggling with first. I firmly believe those trees stayed up as long as they did for a reason.

I went through a lot of hurts before I reconnected with my husband. Heartbreak was my story for many years because I seeking affection and love through dating and toxic friendships. I needed to turn my heart back to God before I would be ready for this relationship. My heart needed to surrender and I had to stop trying to fill the void with worldly things. Only when I gave up trying my own way did healing happen.

We were drawn to one another, but that connection was kept at bay until the time was right for us. I am fully convinced that God’s timing is completely perfect.

You will look back on your situation years from now and see that God was orchestrating something wonderful and you had no idea.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

There is a season for everything and it may be hard, but waiting on God’s timing is always worth it. Do you have a story like this? Tell me about it in the comments!