Look After You

I'm a sappy, romanticish person. I secretly love fairy tales. The princess, the knight in shining armor, the prince, the awesome kingdom with the flippin' sweet castle. I love sappy letters, poems and stuff like that. Every now and then I like a cliche chick flick. Yeah. Not a lot of people know that...

What I'm about to say is sort of a sappy story. If you're one of those people who don't like sappy things then you have two options.

First option: Don't read any further. This seems like the easiest and most sanitary thing to do.

Second option: Get a barf bag. This is a pretty good option but it might get messy...*shrug* 

Alright so for you anti-romantic/sappy people, choose your option because this is where my story starts:

I'm 16. I'm in a serious relationship. I'm in love with this dude. His name is Nate and he's amazing. Even though we have only been dating 9 months today,  I believe that he is the one I'm going to marry and spend the rest of my life with.

Now, you might be thinking "You're only 16! You can't you possibly know that!" or "Are you crazy?" or something like that.  Yes, I'm young, Yes, I know that. And yes, I'm crazy.

There's a nifty story that goes along with this. You know...the one about how I got here to this point in my life --how I know. Obviously there's a lot of this story that is still unwritten, but it'll be written in due time. In God's time actually. He's the One writing this awesome story, not me. I shall give you the shortened version of mine and Nate's dating adventure.

When I was younger (around the age of ten) I made a decision. It was a pretty big decision for a kid. I decided that I wouldn't date just for the sake of dating or just to say I have a boyfriend. I told myself that I wouldn't date any guy unless he was the kind of guy I wanted to marry. I wanted to date as little as possible. If I only had one or maybe two boyfriends my entire life would be just fine with me. Years later that is exactly what I have done.

Alright, so now let me just say that I never thought I'd be dating this young, let alone find "the one". I always thought I'd be at least 17 or in college before I started dating. I never thought my parents would let me either. Honestly, neither did they. Then some guy came along and changed everything.

In Augst 2009 a new family started attending our church. There were two boys who seemed to be around the age of my brother and me. The first time I noticed them was at a Wednesday night prayer meeting. They sat right in front of us. I noticed the tall boy on the far right. For some reason he intrigued me. I found myself wondering what his name was, how old he was, and, for whatever reason, if he had a girlfriend. After church my parents went to introduce themselves. A little while later I joined my mom who was introducing herself to the tall dude. Somewhat awkwardly, she introduced me. It turns out that this dude was Nate Miller. Intersting. He seemed nice and I thought that maybe we could be friends.

After we got home I said to Mom, "That Nate guy seemed nice." Mom replied, "Yeah, he's cute too! You should date him." That's where I stopped with the nice thoughts of friendship. I wanted nothing to do with him.

A couple months passed and some things changed. I got to know Nate better and realized that he was an awesome dude. So I asked him to be my friend. Soon after that we became best friends. And then not long after that I realized I liked him a lot. He loved God, he was nice to everyone, and we had more than a little in common.

I really didn't know what to do about these feelings. Did I tell him and risk losing a friendship or just bite my tongue and not say anything? So I prayed, and one night as I was praying about it I started crying.  I didn't sleep much that night so when I got up in the morning I felt...sad. I really just wanted to talk to my best friend because I knew that somehow he would make me feel happier. When Nate finally logged on to Facebook that afternoon it all just sort of came out. It turned out...he liked me too! Yay!

So lots of stuff happened after that. We prayed a lot about dating, we talked to our parents, and, after we were sure this is what God wanted for us, he finally talked to my dad. We thought dad said no and we were sad; then we realized it was a misunderstanding and we could date.  Yay!

We didn't rush things. We held hands after 4 or 5 days, but we didn't hug until we had dated a month. Now, our dating wasn't really "dating". I can't say that we ever really had a first date. He wasn't (and isn't) allowed to drive me places and we spend most of our time at each other's houses with our families. For the first few months we stared at each other, colored, and watched movies. At 8 months that still pretty much what we do. The coloring not so much any more. We mostly watch movies, play games, and talk. Most people would say it's pretty boring, but we have fun. Probably more fun than other teenagers. =P

After talking to both sets of our parents and praying, around our third month of dating he said that he loved me. Which was awesome because I was in love with him. How could I not be? He loves God more than anything, he respects me and my parents, and he does what's best for me --basically he's everything I prayed for.

So, as you can see, this really wasn't too much of our idea. It was all God. As I said before, we both never thought we'd be in any sort of serious relationship so young. Nate and I both thought that we'd find someone in college or something. We pretty much changed that for each other. God brought him into my life (and me into Nate's life) at just the right time -- right when He knew we both needed a best friend.

This is where my story comes to an end. This was in no way the full story. It's super condensed for the sake of time, but you should get the point. As I said before, I'm 16. I'm in love with an amazing person. Maybe I am crazy to be in a serious relationship while I'm still so young but I know this is God's plan for me and I'm more than happy with that. =)

There now, steady love, so few come and don't go
Will you won't you, be the one I'll always know
When I'm losing my control, the city spins around
You're the only one who knows, you slow it down
 

Oh, oh...be my baby...I'll look after you.

-Look After You by The Fray <3