At the end of August 2008, Andrews University became my new home. Although I feared the brutal winters that everyone warned about, I had transferred there for my junior year of college to begin my studies in Speech-language Pathology with great excitement. I only knew one person at the school, but going to places where I knew no one never really bothered me. I had just finished serving as a missionary in India and had previously lived in England before that. I knew no one beforehand in either place.
Because I only knew one person at Andrews, I had firmly decided that I would not date anyone for a while. I didn’t want to identify myself in a relationship and make all of my friendships through that relationship. I assumed that if the relationship ended, so would all of the friendships. Also, having had more than one major heartbreak in high school, I had made a pact with God that I would date no one until I was certain that it was the person I should marry. I wanted to focus on school, making good friends, and getting connected in ministry. Nothing more.
I arrived to Andrews a week before classes started. For my first day on campus I had a special meeting with the Chaplain for Student Missions to discuss whether I qualified for a scholarship for serving as a missionary. Within 5 minutes of meeting the Chaplain, he offered me the scholarship and he offered me a job. I was flattered and accepted it immediately. He then asked me to return in an hour when they would be filming a interviews with several people who had just returned from their mission experiences.
When I came back an hour later, the interview process was almost over and I was the last one on the list. A very friendly, freckled, and long-haired guy name Nick Snell approached me, gave me a Student Missions T-shirt to change into, and explained how the interview would go. He ended up being the person who interviewed me and I remember thinking, why is this guy listening so intently? It’s a little much. After the interview was over, I was taken to a group of people who I came to find out were the rest of the Student Missions staff, my future co-workers. I could tell that they all knew each other and they were throwing inside jokes left and right. At one point, I completely misunderstood what one of them said. I responded to what I thought she said, only to realize my misunderstanding and everyone started laughing. And I mean really laughing. I was, of course, embarrassed. But then I noticed one person who was not laughing at me. It was Nick. I could tell that he was choosing not to laugh simply because he didn’t want to embarrass me. I was impressed since he had just met me and everyone else was laughing.
A few weeks went by and I finally started working in the Student Missions office in Campus Ministries. On my first day of work, I saw Nick enter the building. I found out that he had been hired by the Outreach department and had an office in the building too. Pretty soon, I noticed a pattern that formed. When Nick would arrive to work, he would visit each person in their offices saying hello and asking how they were. He always ended at my office last and lingered there the longest. Reading between the lines, I caught on to what Nick was doing. So, I tried to get rid of him. I actually knew of a girl who was interested in him, so I started to talk her up. To my disappointment, Nick wasn’t interested. “If someone is interested in someone, they should talk to the person themselves,” he said.
As the days went on and my efforts to discourage Nick from pursuing me kept backfiring, I became conflicted. Although I was committed to my no-dating policy, I couldn’t deny that he was probably the best quality guy I had ever met. So finally I fell on my face in prayer one morning in my dorm room and told God how afraid I was. I did not want the trauma or drama of another failed relationship. “I WILL NOT PURSUE THIS RELATIONSHIP UNLESS HE IS THE ONE!,” I said emphatically. To my surprise, I heard a very small voice say, he is. I can’t quite remember if the voice was in my head or audible to my ears, all I know is I heard and I knew Nick was the one.
You could literally say that the rest was history. Nick and I started to spend every moment we could together. We would work together, study together, eat together, walk together, and talk for hours upon hours together. The more time we were together, the more we knew this was it. We decided that we would get married after we graduated from college in about two years. Life felt perfect and almost unreal until strange things started to happen. After we had been together for only one month, my boss, some of Nick’s extended family, friends, and coworkers began asking us when we were going to get married. Why are so many people asking us this crazy question? We’ve only been together for a month!
One of the most persistent askers was my boss. When we voiced how outrageous of an idea it was to consider getting married so quickly, he asked us this question; “if you know God brought you together and that you are going to get married, why do it later instead of sooner?” We thought about his question and could only come up with two reasons: money and our parents. We were too poor and there was no way all of our parents would agree to this. He responded by saying, “A lot of people think they have to get everything together before getting married. They have to finish school, get established in their professions, and save enough money before they feel that they are ready. Why not get married and learn to work through all of those struggles together?” He then encouraged us to pray over those things and see how God lead us. So we prayed for a whole week.
After that week, we found out that, due to government assistance, Nick’s financial responsibility for the next school year would decrease by $10,000 if we got married and my financial situation would stay the same.
Then came the parents. We decided that if any one of them was not happy about the idea of us getting married that summer, we wouldn’t do it. We asked them in order of difficulty from easiest to hardest. First was Nick’s dad. His response was, “I was just thinking the other day about you two getting married!” Next was Nick’s mom. Her response surprised us as well, “If you guys want to save money after you get married, you can live with us.”
We moved on to my parents, starting with my mom. Her reaction was more of what we expected. “Let me think about it and I’ll call you back,” she said. But within one hour I was back on the phone with her. I listened disbelieving her words, “I’m ok with it. I think God has brought you guys together. So if you want to get married this summer, it’s ok with me. But your dad is not going to be ok with this.” I dreaded calling my dad. What’s the point of calling him? I thought. With my heart pounding in my chest, I called my dad and told him everything that had happened up to that point. Then there was silence. Silence that was so long I thought my dad had hung up on me. “Dad?” I said nervously. And then I heard something. It sounded like crying. My dad was crying!? “All I can say, is that I will miss you as my daughter. It’s ok with me,” he struggled to say.
On August 9, 2009, I made the best decision of my entire life aside from choosing Jesus as my Savior. Just one year shy of meeting each other, Nick and I became husband and wife. We’ve now been married for exactly eight years and one week. It’s been one crazy journey, all of which I would never change. I look forward to each day with him and I’m so grateful that we’ll have eternity together.
Thanks for reading! We’re looking forward to sharing more of the journey God has taken us on, along with new developments soon. May He continue to fill all of our hearts with praise.
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