So, What Is It Like Being Engaged at Nineteen?

Let me tell you....it's certainly not anything I thought it would be! To begin with, I don't see myself as anything different -- for example, the difference between having not been engaged before and being engaged now is entirely indecipherable. I'm the same me! I used to look at engaged women as if they were transformed, in a perfectly lit ray of sunshine all to themselves with their fiance....completely in a different world. What I didn't realize was that it would be as real as it is SURreal.

I love to read and think about quotes. And since being in a relationship (and now being engaged) with Caleb, my eyes have been opened to the astoundingly vast and fathomless world of what it means to love and be loved and to strive with all that you are to live, searching for new and true ways to accomplish Loving by definition masterfully. Just now, I found a quote that I simply could not pass up sharing in this post (as I was, I confess, looking through quotes for inspiration to trigger a new post as I have neglected to write for a very overdue two weeks). It's a simple quote, but very true I think, by an anonymous source.

"We were given: Two hands to hold. Two legs to walk. Two eyes to see. Two ears to listen. But why only one heart? Because the other was given to someone else. For us to find."

I really like that. (Hah! I have two hearts now!) Maybe that's why infatuation is so strong at first meeting...because your two hearts have never beaten together as one, and it is simply too overpowering for one person to handle the initial encounter at a sensibly-minded level. Maybe I think too much.

On a slightly unrelated note, I've been very frustrated recently (and by recently, I mean in the last few months recently) with people's reactions to discovering my being engaged at 19. I've been most disappointed when people look at me, shrug with a grimace and say something to the affect of, "Have a nice life, I hope everything works out for you." And YES, for goodness sake, I know that not everyone will be as happy about this as I am, but I can't help but blindly hope every single time that people will feel some joy in the same way I do, even though it is humanly impossible. Some reactions (understandably in each case) I've gotten have been anywhere from, "Wow, you're engaged?! That's so wonderful! I'm so happy for you!" to "Gosh, I wish I was engaged..." to "Woah, do you have ANY idea what you're getting yourself into?" to "Why would you do something so foolish?" It's heartbreaking to realize that the people who are most dubious are the ones who have been emotionally broken time and time over again. These are the people I can hardly expect to understand what I have because they have never experienced anything remotely close to how good I have it! (And it could be quite judgemental, not to mention proud, of me to say such things, but I'm speaking from genuine speculation.)

I believe that in striving for a good marriage, one should cleave to one's equal. Or better, you should find someone who esteems you as better than themselves as mutually as you esteem them better than you. It must be an equal relationship as you strive together, iron against iron, sharpening each other into a more beautiful creation than you could ever have endeavored to be on your own. I think that in finding one's own, you first realize how flawed you have lived, how torn and broken and unfinished, until you meet this person who fulfills you, completes you, and makes you whole.

I could never have dreamed I would be as blessed as I am...never. And certainly not by the time I turned nineteen. Last year, at St. John's Orthodox Church Camp 2007, I was preparing to leave for college soon after returning home. It was a huge year for me, but one of the things I finally let go was this inner desire to know who my future husband was going to be. Upon moving to Ohio early in 2007, I'd subconsciously begun wondering (at meeting each and any male even close to my age) if he was The One. That summer, I figured out that what I needed to do most, in order to really let God let "him" find me, was to let go of this restlessness I felt. I succeeded, miraculously. I did. Because little did I know that my (now) fiance was eyeing me in a new light for the first time that summer camp. I couldn't be more grateful that God temporarily blinded me (and especially) during that week so that I missed how Caleb would look at me, or save me for the end (when hugging other campers during camp hugs) so he could linger a second more, or spend more and more time being around me...

If I had known then, I surely would not have been ready for what God was preparing me for. Over the next few months, getting used to college life and keeping up an email correspondence with Caleb, the unignorable feeling started to strengthen, beginning to pulse in the back of my mind, more powerful and noticeable with each coming day I got to know Caleb better -- that gut feeling like he was the one I would inevitably end up with. I don't know quite how to describe it, but it didn't quite surprise me at first because somehow, I'd always known, but never before been aware that I'd known. (Lost any of you yet?)

And also, in a very real way, the feelings I felt at the time were more subdued somehow. I wasn't filled with the feverish excitement that any previous infatuation I'd ever known had consumed me. It was a more....mature feeling. Something I'd never quite experienced before. It was more patient, yet it still pulsed with an undercurrent of burning curiosity. (And by nature, I am quite curious to begin with!) I was dying to know more about him, every chance I could get (which remained governed by the fact that my priorities were forced to be school and practicing at the time, making my leisure time for Caleb Class considerably less lengthy than desirable). Thirsty for knowledge of everything about him, but somehow calm about the timing that the information was revealed to me, and cheered by the fact that (quite obviously) he initiated every advance to discovering more knowledge of me. More and more, as our friendship progressed, the feelings I was just beginning to realize which had always been there were gradually being unearthed, as he dug deeper into the richest soil of my mind with each new question, each new discovery of me, each new fascination. And, as I got to know him better, I was aware that he was breaking down every single wall I had subconsciously and unknowingly built around myself; he crumbled my surrounding fortress, stripping any falseness or facade, leaving me irrivocably exposed and unquestionably me. The real me. So perfect was his pursual that I had no refuge, no warning, but was left to let him know me and love me as the true, vulnerable, absolutely defenseless, but utterly real me. All of me, the good and bad, the sinful and desirable.

In this way, the lesson I began learning then was that in order to be truly loved, one must be truly known. And, likewise, in turn, one must truly know in order to truly love.

And now I can describe as best I can how whole I feel, now I have been found by the one I was created for. In our flaws, I believe (as cliche as it sounds...) that we ARE perfect for one another. We compliment each other. We share common strengths as well as common weaknesses, while also possessing supplimentary weaknesses and strengths. We balance each other out. We share common loves, values, and beliefs.

But the way I feel now is that I have found my place. I feel at home because I know myself through my dearest love. He is home to me. And even when he isn't present, he is always on my mind in some way, mostly in comfort and peace of mind. The knowledge that he is the one for me, and I for him -- this is what I cling to. And now you understand the pain I feel for anyone who cannot see how it is. How I truly know what I'm doing in saying to anyone, "Yes, I am nineteen, yes, I am engaged, yes I am getting married, and no, I will never get divorced like you suspect I will."

How beautiful it is to love and to be loved in loving and being loved by He who made all things!

I don't know how to respond to such people who react in this way. Frustration and defiance and an irrepressible urge to explain to them and force understanding upon them is, shamefully, my first inclination. I just wish that everyone can understand!! But I am learning more and more, that it is a futile wish indeed for any man to see another's life as clearly as he lives it.

I was merely lucky enough to meet the man better than my dreams at an unusually young age. And for that, especially in today's society, one as young as I am is looked upon as naiive and rash, I think. Age really shouldn't have anything to do with it though. The maturity is right. The timing is right. The decison is right. That's all I need. And I am more grateful today than ever that Caleb was able to wait, and that God held him captive to his own blindness so he could not see me in true light until the right time. As Caleb put it, "Any sooner and it would have been illegal for me to even LOOK at you." So, he had to wait to grow a wife! And here I am. Willing and ready, with fear and trembling. Standing to be tried. And challenged to be a good and godly wife.

And that is, to some extent, how I feel being engaged at nineteen...