#3 Falling in Love with Darin

Tonight when Darin and I were playing with Landon and Emmaline, I looked over at him and thought it's so funny that this man who is now the father of my children, the person that, God willing, I will spend the rest of my life with, I didn't really even know 7 years ago.  It's amazing how quickly someone can become such an important part of your life. This is especially true in mine and Darin's relationship, our courtship was what some might consider "too fast".  In fact if you had asked me in the years before we got together I would have said I could never decide to get married that quickly, however I learned that cliche expression that so many people have repeated, "we just knew" was true for us.


Let me start at the beginning of our story, which in truth for me started before Darin was even on my radar in any way shape or form.  I had just moved to Cleveland for my first "real" job, which was at an organization called Cleveland Hope. I won't go into that though as I already talked about that job in this blog post.   It was late January or early February and my housemates and I were trying to find a church in the Cleveland area.  We attended a new church start called Mosaic.  I don't remember what the sermon was about that day, but at the end that pastor had us all bow our heads for a time of prayer and reflection and at that time I felt God speak to me very clearly about three characteristics He wanted me to start praying for in a husband.  I don't know why this happened at this time, I don't think the sermon was about relationships and I know I wasn't checking out anyone in that service as possible marriage material, but nevertheless the memory is very clear and I know for certain that God was speaking to about these three things. The three characteristics He told me to start praying for were:
1. That God would give me a husband with Christ-like integrity.
2. That God would give me a husband who was a servant leader.
3.  That God would give me a husband who would put his family second only to God.
Even though I was completely bewildered as to why God was burdening me with this right now, I began to pray for these things and continued to pray for the next 5 or 6 months.

Fast forward a few weeks after this service, I come to my desk one day to find a fax laying on it from a church planter who was currently working in the town right next to where I grew up.  His name was Darin and the fax was a partnership interest form, which is the form people turned in when they wanted to come to Cleveland on a mission trip.  When I looked at the form I recognized Darin's name, I knew who he was as he had visited my home church several times and I had gone with groups to serve at  a local city mission where he had worked a few years before.   I didn't really think anything of it and I proceeded to do my normal job and contacted him to get more information about his mission trip interests and after a cordial but business like conversation I told him I would be in touch as soon as we found a project for his team.

I continued over the next few months to exchange emails or short phone calls with him regarding the mission trip but then one day I got an email from him that wasn't a typical "mission team leader" to "moblization associate" email.  The email said he wanted to come to town on a pre-trip to check out what his group would be doing before bringing his team to Cleveland.  This was a pretty typical thing for mission team leaders to do.  However the next thing the email said was that he was going to catch an Indians game while he was here and he wanted to know if I would go with him.  I remember rolling back from my desk and saying to my friend Amber, (who also knew of Darin from our hometown) "I think Darin just asked me on a date."  We proceeded to analyze the situation and I believe another of our co-workers, Micah,  jumped in the conversation with his male perspective.  We debated whether it was just a friendly, hey I don't really know anyone in Cleveland and could use some company kind of invitation or was this a date.  I was skeptical about it being a date until  a few days prior to this "questionable baseball game date" he asked me to have dinner with him before the game and it was then that I was pretty sure, this was a date.

Now I have to be honest, I was already pretty nervous about this baseball game.   I'm not a super big sports fan and I know baseball games can be long, really long.  I was so worried about what this guy who was a friendly acquaintance and I would talk about for 3-4 HOURS! Then if that wasn't nerve wracking enough, we were going to have dinner before! That meant another hour of trying to make conversation! So there was a part of me that was dreading this "outing".  However there was another part of me that was kind of excited about it.  Since we had decided to attend this game we had exchanged a few more emails that were slightly more personal in nature and he seemed like a really nice guy, plus if my memory was serving me correctly he was also nice looking.  So while I expressed a lot of dread to my co-workers about this FOUR HOUR baseball game and how I was sure we would have nothing to talk about, I was excited enough to bring stuff to work that day to redo my makeup and hair before we went out.  (The plan was for him to pick me up at work.)

Well as you may have guessed by now, much to my surprise dinner and the baseball game went really well. We talked the whole time and we both really enjoyed ourselves.  It went so well that he even came over to my house for a little while after the game where we continued to talk.  I have to admit when he left that night I was very much interested in spending more time with this Darin guy.  However there was one big problem, we lived four hours away from each other.  I remember going to bed and praying that night, I thanked God for the good time we had and that it wasn't awkward. I told the Lord that I thought Darin was a really cool guy and I was sad that the distance would probably keep me from getting to know him better, but I asked that the Lord's will be done and that He would work it out however He saw fit.

D & I on my 24th Birthday!

It just so happened that I was going home to attend my best friend's wedding shower the day after we went to the baseball game.  I had told Darin that I would be in town that weekend and guess who decided to call me and see if I would have time to get ice cream with him before I headed back to Cleveland?? So just three days after our baseball game date we went to Flubbs for ice cream and I continued to realize how cool this Darin guy was, however the sadness was still there when after an hour or so I had to get in my car and head back to Cleveland.  I think he asked me if he could call me and I said yes, he even offered to call me on my drive back to talk to me and help me stay awake!  Just a few hours after I left I did indeed get a phone call from him telling me how much he had enjoyed hanging out with me.  He called me several more times that week and we talked for hours.  My birthday was that following Sunday and late in the week he told me he wanted to drive up to take me out for my birthday! I was pretty impressed, he wanted to drive 4 hours up and 4 hours back in one day just to take me to dinner on my birthday.

Subway at the park!

So on my 24th birthday, he showed up at my house around 5 with a birthday present which included flowers and a disposable camera (that he wanted to use to take picture of us on our date as he didn't have any pictures of me.)  We took a drive along a Lake Erie coastal road and stopped at Subway to get sandwich which we ate a cute little park, where he held my hand for the first time and gave me a very surprising kiss on the cheek.  I remember getting back in the car after we had eaten and I was fiddling with this magnetic clip he had sitting in his consul and he told me, "I really wish you would put that clip down so I can hold your hand."  ( I saved that clip for years, even after it broke, Darin always teased me about it, but I loved the special memory attached to it.)  We then drove back to my house and hung out on a school playground that was right next to my house.  We sat on the swings and talked for hours.  It was then that Darin told me he wanted to pursue me for marriage.  Wow!  I was a little blown away at this comment.  I mean our first date had been on June 1st, it was now June 11th! So while part of me wanted to run, because I had been burned in my past by guys who had come on very strong in the beginning of a relationship, something inside me, told me not to run, but just to wait and see.  I think I told him I was interested in getting to know him better but I admitted I was a little guarded because of past hurts, he was understanding but also challenged me not to judge him based on other guys mistakes.

(One of my least favorite memories of that night was D's goatee!)

One of my favorite memories of that night was when we were sitting on the swings and he asked me if I had ever seen the movie First Night.  I told him I vaguely remembered it and so he proceeded to tell me this story about how Sir Lancelot had rescued Guinevere but when he kissed her she got mad at him. So he tells her I will not kiss you again until you ask me to.  Darin then told me that he really wanted to kiss me but he would wait until I asked him to.  Wow!  If I was a swooning woman, I think I would have then.  (However, even though he totally melted my heart with that story, I still made him wait til the next date to kiss me.)  We really had an amazing night though, we talked, cuddled some and we ended up staying at the park till almost 2 in the morning! I felt so bad because he had to drive four hours back home!

The next few weeks became very intense. We were four hours away but there were a lot of emails exchanged and lots of long phone conversations.  Darin would write me poems and he would talk about the future and was very clear that he saw me as a part of his future. In one of those phone conversations I found out that while he had really wanted to bring a mission team to Cleveland, he had ulterior motives from very early on in the process and those were to meet me and find out if I was marriage material! He told me about how when he was "researching Cleveland Hope" he found my picture on the website and accidentally made it the wall paper of the shared computer at his work! In another of those phone conversations I told him that I was surprised that he was interested in me because I was pretty sure he was too good for me.  The reason I was sure that he was in fact to good for me was because on our first date he had told  me about how he used a trash can to take a shower during his first few months after moving to his ministry job in Hamilton because the place he stayed didn't have a shower. (If you know me, you know that would not be something I would want to do for an extended period of time.)  He then told me that he loved the fact that I was so girly and had so many pairs of shoes! (He denies he ever said that about the shoes, but I promise he did!) 
 

I was especially smitten after the goatee was gone. :)

 I admit that I was totally smitten with him but I still wasn't sure that I was as serious about our relationship as he was. In fact there were times where I found myself a little freaked out by how sure he seemed to be about our relationship and future.  I remember it was a few weeks in when one of my good friends and co-workers, Micah, challenged me that it was time to decide how I felt.  He said, " Darin is obviously very serious about you and its time for you to decide how serious you are about this relationship. Is he someone you can see yourself spending your life with?"  That challenge really took me back for a minute.  I had been praying but I started to pray even more seriously and I remember it was within the next 24 hours that God brought to my mind the three characteristics that he had asked me to start praying for back in late January.  I realized that Darin was a man with Christ-like integrity, he was a servant leader, and in one of our discussions we had he had talked about wanting to always make sure he didn't put his ministry before his wife and children.  It was then that I started to have peace and realize that this was the man I could see myself spending the rest of my life with.

The next two months were a whirlwind.  We still lived four hours a part but we made it work. He came to Cleveland for the 4th of July, we met in Columbus for a few Saturday dates, I went home a couple of times, he came up for a week with his mission trip.  It was during the month of July that Darin decided to look for work in Cleveland.  His ministry commitment was coming to an end and mine had just started so it just seemed to make sense.  We started praying that God would open the right doors and by the first week of August he had accepted a job offer to come and be the worship and small groups pastor of a new church start, Bridge Church. 

Things were really rolling along.  He had told me that he wanted to marry me. He was uprooting his whole life to be close to me.  I knew he was going to propose sometime soon, but I had no idea when or how he would do it. The very last weekend in August was to be his last week at the church where he was serving as the part time worship pastor. That church was going to ordain him that Sunday and then he was packing up and moving to Cleveland.  He had met my parents the weekend before when my best friend had gotten married.  I also knew he had taken my dad out to breakfast and asked for his permission to marry me.  However we still weren't engaged.

At our 2nd Indians game together!

The Friday night before his ordination service he had driven to Cleveland to go to an Indians game with me.  My work was having a party there and we were allowed to bring a guest.  I was sure he was going to propose that night. I mean it was perfect, our first date was at an Indians game, I knew he had the ring already.  However the night came and went and there was no proposal.  That Saturday I drove back to Cincinnati with him so I could be there for his ordination service. His parents and sister were also coming to town for it and I would meet them for the first time.  He told me we were all going to have dinner at a his good friend's house, the Postelwaits.  Thankfully I got to meet his parents a little earlier in the day when we were able to have lunch with them after they got into town, because I don't think I could have handled everything that was going to happen that night if I had added meeting his parents for the very first time. 

Re-enacting "the moment" with huge fake ring

We arrived at the Postelwaits for dinner that night and I walked in to find not only Darin's parents and sister, but also my parents as well as my brother Chad and sister in law, Julie.  If that wasn't enough another couple who had been very special to Darin and I, Larry and Linda Gaines, were there!  I was in shock! I kept thinking this is so weird what is going on?? Why didn't he tell me my parents were going to be here?  I was honestly a little miffed at him that he hadn't let me prepare myself for our parents first meeting.   Then I realized, he's going to propose that night, so I was really nervous!

See why the "Me" was hard for me to see?

After a beautiful dinner, a few of the men got up and went outside to "look at a car in the garage".  Darin put his arm around me as Helen opened the curtain on a big picture window looking over the backyard.  Darin asked if I had seen the backyard, I remember saying, "Yes, you showed me last time we were here."  He then said, "will you please look again?" so I looked out the window and there was a sign lit up with Christmas lights that I thought said "Deborah, Will You Marry?   I looked back at Darin, he had gotten down on one knee and had pulled a ring out of his pocket and was looking at me and waiting.  I didn't say anything because I was wondering if he was going to finish the question as all I could see on the sign was" Deborah, Will You Marry?"  I remember he asked me "Can you read the sign?" I said,  "Yes, I think so..." and he said "well..." at which point I just couldn't hold it in any more and said, "Yes of course I'll marry you!" (Later I found out the sign did say me but he had used the same 'M' for marry and me because he had run out of room.)  Everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief when I finally said yes. I had hesitated so long because I thought he was going to finish the question that I had apparently made them all nervous that I would turn him down!

We got engaged August 26th, less than three months after our first date. We were married a short 6 months after that.  It was definitely a whirlwind romance and it all happened much faster than my practical self ever would have thought possible.  However I discovered that sometimes you really just do "know".  Also after the initial few weeks where I struggled with a lot of fear of being hurt, I just had an incredible peace that committing to spend my life with Darin was what God wanted me to do (and what I wanted to do!). That is something Darin always said as well, he just always had an incredible peace about us, a peace that surpassed all understanding.   Being engaged less than three months after I had  prayed and asked God to let his will be done in this friendship with a guy who had taken me to a baseball game but lived  four hours away, was not the answer I expected from God.  That's the cool thing about how God works though, His answer to my prayers was so much better than anything I would have imagined, and I thank him for the wonderful gift he gave me in Darin every single day!