My life plan at 18 was to go to college, meet the perfect boy that met my checklist of standards, date through college, get engaged senior year, both get jobs right out of school and get married in October 2012. Happy fake wedding month to me!
When I started dating Geoff, I was 19 years old and a sophomore at Georgia College, things were lining up perfect for my wonderful dream life. I never thought we would actually get jobs right out of college because of the state of the economy but low and behold we both got full time jobs before we even graduated! Back to my perfect dream life plan... in college things were looking good for this girl!
First hang time at IHOP in Conyers in October 2008.
November 2009 - When all our friends tell us to just admit that we like each other but of course we deny it. Hey Benny Boy lookin' like a little kid!
January 2010 we decided we should start dating and go to Tacky Prom together.
Planning is one of my biggest faults. But not in the way you may expect. I am in fact one of the best planners you will ever meet. But, I rely on my own plans so much that the Lord has a wonderfully horrible way of revealing to me that His plans may not necessarily be my plans. So here I am 22, dating the same dream boy for almost 3 years, we both love Jesus, we both love each other, we both love loving Jesus together and we think that being together forever would be really cool. But there is no ring, no "timeline", no wedding date, no house hunting... there is a boy trying to do the Lord's will and a girl running very low on patience.
This is how I feel everyday... (cute kid... depressing thought)
This is not the cue for the pity party to officially begin, this is the cue for me to shut up, suck it up, and drink in some wisdom. This was passed along to me from my dear friend Madalene Ramsey... she dated her husband Ben for 5 years before they got married, so it looks like I need to listen to someone that has endured this hard season longer than I have.
Madelene gave me this quote from an Andy Stanley sermon:
"Here is what patience is. Love never pressures the other person. Love creates as much space and time and margin as the other person needs. If you are in a relationship and you are being pushed. That person is not loving you. This doesnt suddenly appear as a personal virtue when you say I do."
My new name is Stephanie 'giver of space and time' Hladilek. I will most likely need to remind myself of this in 5 minutes.Additional thoughts:
- If you are engaged, recently engaged, about to be engaged... I don't hate you. Please don't hear that from reading my post.
- Also, please don't think any of this post is "poor me" or an attempt to convince Geoff to just man up and commit already. Seriously... just sharing my heart, trying to be cool, and hopefully helping a sister walk through the same tough season.
- When I do get engaged I don't want people to just say "Oh she finally got her ring..." that's not what this is about. This is about learning how to be the woman Jesus wants me to be during a really tough season.
