How I Met My Wife

I met Amy in 1993. Freshman year at Mississippi college, in the library of all places. Her version and my version of the next four years of college are a bit different. It has some really funny parts with some not so funny ones, too.

I got to college with a good bit of baggage. I wanted to leave behind my old life and start a new one, in a new place. Clinton was unfamiliar to me, and that was fine with me. 

Amy says she knew she would marry me someday. Like "love at first sight." She fell for me quickly. I wish I could say the same. It took me several semesters before I fell for her. We didn't start dating until our junior year!! Oops. I kept her waiting for quite some time! 

Amy was serious about me since she basically "stalked" me in college. She would get very upset with me when I would go on dates with other girls (Amy later tells me). Remember, we were just friends at the time. I may have known she liked me but I didn't realize she was obsessed with me. :)

I suppose she couldn't see past my "tall, dark, and handsome" appearance (Ha. Whatever.) and notice my large amounts of personal baggage. She was "blinded by love" I guess you could say. OR, she knew all about my baggage and STILL loved me and wanted to be with me. That's really more of what happened (even she admits). It is really quite amazing and romantic, or nuts. You can decide.

After a serious dating relationship ended for me and for her (and around the same time), something changed in my heart and mind toward Amy. I no longer saw her as "just" a friend who admired me. I WANTED to be with her and for the long-haul. That semester of our junior year we finally started dating.

Once we started dating, we got real serious, real quick. We spent countless hours together. Friends became less and less important as we grew closer and closer as a couple. As that happened, many of  my inner insecurities surfaced. I started becoming easily jealous, highly infatuated, and pursued her daily, all out. We got engaged in less than a year of dating!

Many could argue that she should have run far from me due to the repeated disappointments I caused her over our time at MC. I am glad she didn't give up on me, though. We ended up getting married on May 17, 1997, a week after I graduated from MC. She still had a semester to go.

I am saddened by the fact that I took her for granted and betrayed her so deeply. I still can't fathom how or why I believed the lies in my mind that she didn't really love me, or that she did not like me. That dark path I took 12 years into our marriage is forever etched into our story. 

How tragic...

but God still found a way to do something only He could accomplish.