Our Story -- Part 5

Ahh, so sorry it's been six whole months since I've updated this!  To be honest, I just ran out of steam and inspiration.  Good thing for y'all it's our seventh anniversary today and celebrating gave me a little bit of extra inspiration. ;)

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4

It was now October, and with October came the annual PKMK retreat for our district, a retreat I'd been attending since seventh grade and a weekend I looked forward to more than anything else all year.  (PKMK stands for Pastors' Kids & Missionaries' Kids.)

Our youth pastor drove us up, but had to be back at church on Sunday, so guess who was asked to come pick me and my siblings up on Sunday?  Yeah, that's right.  Drew.  There weren't many people who could drive that Morrow bus, haha.

Needless to say, the ride home was a long one.  Drew was his typical friendly annoying self, chatting up my siblings and trying to engage me in conversation, as usual.  I rebuffed all attempts, as usual.

My parents were out of town attending a wedding and all my siblings were staying with friends, so when we got back to Williamsburg, Drew went around dropping them all off.  I was "house sitting" for my parents and, as Drew had our van, it made sense to drop me off last.

When we got to my house, he offered to help me bring in my bag and a couple other things that had been left in the van.  But then when he was done, he just casually plopped down on the couch.  Clearly the guy had been invited over for Sunday lunch a few too many times.  I wanted to hint that I was tired, that I had a friend coming over to stay with me, that I wanted him to leave, but I didn't.

Finally, after a few (long and awkward) minutes passed, he spoke.

"Can I tell you something without it being weird?"

Because prefacing it like that definitely won't make it weird...?

"I guess?"  I replied, although it's possible that I only nodded.  I had a strange feeling that I knew what was coming.  Sure enough...

"I, uh... I have feelings for you.  Is that weird?"

Weird?  Nooooo!  (Sarcasm.)  I mean, there was only an almost-eight year age gap.  There was only the fact that I'd been trying to send the message for about three months now that I was not interested even in being friends.  He was only the weirdest guy I knew (not that I knew a lot).

"Yeah.  That's weird."  I shrugged, struggling to remain calm and indifferent on the outside, hoping my face wasn't turning bright red.  Inside, I was freaking out.

Silence fell.  Awkward silence.

Then Drew stood up.  "Well... sorry.  I can go now."

I could tell he wanted me to say something else, but my mind had completely shut down.  Although I'd kind of-sort of been expecting him to say something like this, it still felt completely out of the blue.  I couldn't think, much less talk.  So I didn't.  I just nodded.  And he left.

A few days later, I got an email from him, basically telling me he was sorry and he really didn't want things to be awkward between us.  We were friends, after all, and saw each other a couple times a week at church events.

But it was awkward, I told him.  And I didn't know how to make it not.

For a few months, things were weird.  He would come over for Sunday lunch and I would eat and then go hide in my room.  He started tutoring Destiny in math and I take my homework from the kitchen table to hide in my room.  He'd come over for a movie and -- you guessed it -- I'd hide in my room!

Eventually, the awkwardness started to go away, and we started becoming friends again.  But that's a continuation for another day. ;)

. . . to be continued . . .

Stay tuned!  I promise it won't be another six months before I write again!

Our Story -- Part 4

PART 4, AKA "IT GETS REAL."  This one is also kind
of short, but the next one will be longer, I promise!

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

I had no intention of striking back up any sort of friendship with Drew.  Somewhere along the line over the last month or so, I had decided that not only did I not like like him, but I also just did not like him.  I hate to admit this, but I'm going to be honest... the first couple times he tried initiating a conversation with me, I discovered that I found his incessant friendliness irritating.  

So I resolved to avoid him.  

Over the summer, our church had moved from meeting at a small elementary school to a large high school, so it was relatively easy to evade him in this new environment.  (And no, I didn't have to resort to hiding in bathrooms this time!)

It was harder to dodge the guy at youth events, though.

One of my favorite parts of high school was being a part of our youth group's drama team.  We ministered at our church, at homeless shelters, on retreats, in children’s church, and at other youth groups and churches.  And somehow Drew was getting invited to chaperone these outreaches.  Ugh!

One night that September, we were serving at a church about an hour away and presented our drama after the worship set.  As we left the stage to find our seats, I was less than pleased to discover that Drew had taken the empty seat next to mine.

Oh, great!  I thought, making a face.  Apparently he hadn't realized that we were incompatible as friends yet.  As if to reinforce my opinion of him, Drew leaned close to me to whisper something.

“My gum is stale.”

“So spit it out,”  I whispered back, hopefully sending the message that I wanted that to be the end of it.

“I don’t have anywhere to put it.”  A pause, then:  “Can I put it behind your ear?”

“What?”  Y'all.  I cannot make this stuff up.  I don't know where he came up with it!  Was being annoying just something that came naturally to him?

“Can I put it behind your ear?”  He grinned knowingly, unrepentantly.  I hated that look.

“No!”  I felt like telling him to grow up.  I didn’t.  Instead, I threw him a withering look and turned my back to him.  He didn’t bother trying again.

At the end of the message, an altar call was given and Drew, being a youth leader, went to pray for some of the kids from our group who had responded to the invitation.  I took advantage of his absence by making myself more comfortable in my chair, in order to pray.

You are going to marry Drew.

The thought came out of nowhere and I nearly laughed.  I might have, if my stomach hadn’t been sinking through the floor.  I knew the Voice that had spoken.

I could think of a million reasons why we wouldn’t—couldn’t—work.  I mean, hadn’t God been listening earlier?  Was this some kind of sick joke?  I had standards, after all!  I had plans!  And Drew was not in them!  Maybe at one time he was, but that had been months ago.  Now I just found him annoying.  

Anyway, I was seventeen - way too young to be thinking about marriage!

Impulsively, I turned to one of my friends who was sitting on my other side.  “I think God just told me I’m going to marry Drew,” I blurted.

It was a statement I immediately wished I could unsay.  Saying it out loud didn’t make it sound as silly as I’d thought it would.  If anything, it sounded more plausible.

“Seriously?”  She asked as her eyes lit up.   “That’s so awesome! Drew’s a great guy!”

I simply nodded, miserable but unable to find a voice for my protests.  No one would appreciate them anyway.  Everyone loved Drew.  Finally I said, “But I don’t like him!”

My friend smiled.   “Maybe you will.”

Her casual attitude toward my potential future bothered me, but I shrugged and let it go.

Maybe, she’d said. But maybe not.

I was pretty confident I wouldn’t change my mind.  Even if I did, Drew was eight years older than me.  Practically impossible.  With resolve, I put the words out of my head.  

I’d been mistaken.  God hadn’t said anything.

. . . continue to part five . . .

Our Story -- Part 3

So sorry for the length of time in between posts.  It's been a busy summer!

PART 1 | PART 2

Over the next few months, Drew and I became better friends.  At the youth leaders' Christmas party, which I attended as a student leader, I realized I had a crush on him.  I felt like the silliest girl on earth -- because it was like every other girl in the youth group also liked him -- but he had such a dynamic, magnetic personality, that it seemed out of my control!

One of my friends somehow got his phone number and showed me with the biggest smile on her face, ready to share if I wanted it, too.  Not that we planned on using it, ever, but we were giddy with the possession of something so personal.  I didn't copy it down, though; the only way I wanted that information was if Drew gave it to me himself.

And a couple weeks later, he did.  We were at some youth event, and it was so nonchalant.  Like, "Hey, in case you need to reach me, or in case we get separated, here's my cell."  (I, of course, gave him mine in return.)

I was so triumphant... and completely aware of how idiotic it was!

And then he started texting me, which was just becoming popular.  We had an ongoing argument over which texting method was faster, ABC (which he used) or T9 (which I used); it finally resulted in a text-off... in which T9 won.  Duh.  We also exchanged IM screen names at some point and we would chat while he was in one of his law classes.  (Not recommended, y'all -- Drew claimes that was the only class he didn't do well in.)

For my 17th birthday, he got me a little dreidel, which was kind of an inside joke between us.  I still have no idea where he found one in March, but he somehow managed it.

People started asking me about him and it was always awkward.  How was I supposed to respond?!  "Oh, yeah, I really like him, but I'm 16/17 and he's 23!"  Plus, he was always really friendly to everyone, so I never felt like I got special attention from him.  In my mind, it was always completely one-sided.  I mean, it would be weird if he liked me back, right?!

In May, Drew went back to Texas for the summer.  The first two months of the summer, we talked on the phone regularly, maybe 5 nights a week.  I got home from work between 11 and 11:30 every night and he would call me and we would chat late into the night.

And then one day, I asked myself what I was doing.  I knew if we kept talking this frequently, I was going to start liking him too much and that it was going to hurt a heck of a lot when the inevitable happened.  Suddenly, I became convinced that he was going to meet someone that summer.  He was probably even going to come back engaged.

So I decided to cut the friendship off then and there.  I stopped answering most of his calls, and when I did pick up, I never allowed the conversation to last more than a couple of minutes.  My friend and I were going on an overseas missions trip in July, and I kept making excuses that I needed to pack or prepare.

Finally Drew got the hint.  His calls tapered off, and so did the texting.  And by the time I left for Bulgaria, I felt like I was completely over him.

I'd love to say I had a hard time letting him go, that he was hard to forget, that I thought of him all the time.  But if I'm honest, I hardly thought about him at all the rest of the summer.

The first time I saw him at church that fall, I felt a little zing of excitement, but I quickly pushed it away, firmly telling myself that we weren't friends anymore.

Unfortunately (or fortunately?) for me, nobody had ever told Drew that.

. . . continue to part four . . .

Our Story -- Part 2

Apologies for keeping you guys in suspense!  Like I said, Our Story is kind of long and the end of Part 1 was just a natural stopping point before launching into the next part.  In any case, I gotta keep y'all coming back, right? ;) I'm hoping to make this installment a bit longer, though.  If you haven't read Part 1, click here!

The summer went by and I forgot about my spring stalker.  I didn't think about him again until one evening in September at work.

I had just clocked out for my break, grabbed my purse from the back, and was waiting in line to get my food when I felt a tap, tap, tap on my shoulder.

I turned around, expecting to see someone from church (this being the only Chick-fil-A in town, it was a pretty popular spot).

My stomach dropped to the floor.

There he was.

He smiled.  Said hello with a friendly wave.  I think I smiled back.  And then I tried to ignore him as much as was possible with my stomach twisting itself into a thousand knots.

After getting my food, I walked to the back corner of the restaurant and sat in a booth, trying to calm down.  I'd been seated maybe two minutes when I look up to see him standing over me, wearing a t-shirt and a smile, holding his tray of food.  

"Can I sit here?"

What was this, the school cafeteria?  And what was I supposed to say?  "No, take your number one combo with barbecue sauce and go sit somewhere else"?  

"Uh, sure."  I replied tentatively, watching as he slid into the booth across from me.  

He smiled again and held out his hand.  "I'm Drew Louis."

The only thing for me to do was shake his hand and introduce myself, so I did.  In the course of the conversation, I learned that Drew was a law student at William & Mary (yeah, can't lie, I was a little impressed), and that he'd started going to my church back in the spring.  He'd been home for the summer but was back now that school had started again.  Oh, and "home" was Dallas, Texas, where my dad is from.  And speaking of my dad, Drew apparently knew him.

He wanted to know more about me, so I graciously gave as little information as I could.  You know, I'm in high school.  Sixteen, to be exact about my age.  Hint hint.  Leave me alone, stalker.  But mostly I just let him talk.

And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw my family's van pull into a spot outside.  I knew it was ours because it was probably the only 15-passenger van in town.  Sure enough, my little sister hopped out of the front seat.  I wanted to disappear.  

She spotted me when she came in and headed straight over.  "Just checking my schedule..." her eyes were curious, mischievous.  "Who's this?"

"Oh, uh, this is Drew... Louis..." My face felt like it was on fire.  "Drew, this is my sister, Destiny."

I wasn't sure if the situation had gotten better or worse.  On the one hand, Destiny was outgoing and chatty.  It wouldn't be hard for her to engage this guy in small talk and take the pressure off of me.  On the other hand, I was going to have a lot of explaining to do when I got home.  And I didn't even know what to explain.

I couldn't focus on their conversation, trying to think of a way to explain what was going on here.  Finally she left, flashing me a knowing smile that looked like it needed a wink to accompany it.

After Destiny's departure, I checked my phone and realized I needed to get back to work.  Hallelujah.  I'm not sure if 30 minutes had ever passed more slowly.

When I got home from work that night, Destiny was ready to pounce on me. 

"Who was that guy?!"  She asked.  I told her I didn't know him.  He had asked to sit with me, said he knew Dad.

"Oh, yeah, Drew!  He's my friend!  Great guy!"  This came from my dad.  Well, there went my support.  I'd been counting on my dad to go and scare this guy off, not tell me he was a great guy!  My dad did not like his girls hanging out with boys, people!  

At least the good news was that I wasn't going to be in trouble for eating dinner with a guy.

My mom chimed in then, a little exasperated that she didn't know this guy.

"Who's Drew, Mark?  I don't know him!  Have I met him?  I'm glad you know him, because I was concerned when I saw Taylor eating with a guy I didn't know, but how have I not met him?  Describe him to me!"

I covered my face with my hands and told everyone I'd be upstairs.  This was so embarrassing!  And they were making such a big deal over nothing!  I sincerely hoped that this Drew Louis guy would stop coming to church.  Or at least stop following me around.

For a few weeks, I didn't see him.  Just long enough for me to almost forget about our second Chick-fil-A encounter.  

November came, and with it our youth group's annual fall retreat.  My sisters and I arrived at the drop off location with our bags in tow, excited at the promise of a weekend away with God and friends.  I hopped out of the Morrow van and my excitement died.  

There he was.

Again.

Ugh, why wouldn't he just disappear?!

No matter.  I was not about to let him ruin fall retreat for me.  I looked forward to this weekend all year.  No way could a boy ruin it for me.

I unloaded my things from the van to see where my friends were sitting as other kids started loading their stuff into the van.  The youth group borrowed the "Morrow Bus" for road trips; usually the youth pastor drove it.  One had to be skilled to drive that monster, let me tell you.  

But this year, we were taking an extra car -- an old suburban that someone had donated to the church.  It was kind of finicky, so the youth pastor had decided to drive that one instead.  So guess who was chosen to drive our van?  Right.  Drew.

I should probably ride in the van to make sure he doesn't wreck it.

Haha.  I didn't even have my license.

See, about this point, I had decided he was kind of cute.  And if I was going to have a stalker, I may as well have a cute one, right?  I was also comforted by the fact that he seemed to be friends with the youth pastor.  And he seemed to genuinely like youth group kids.  We are not always an easy bunch to love.  

So maybe this guy wasn't creepy and weird.  Maybe he was just friendly.  And if he wasn't stalking me, if he just liked hanging out with youth group kids (which was obvious from the fact that he was a magnet for middle-school boys)... he was kind of cool.

Even if he didn't know how to work the A/C in our van.  In the middle of our trip, I climbed over three seats to help him adjust things.  Oh, I could have done it the easy way, sure.  But where's the fun in that?  I'm an expert at crawling over seats in a moving vehicle; Morrow Road Trips gave me lots of practice.  And you know, maybe he thought it was cool that I could do that.

Now I cared if he thought I was cool?  I suddenly didn't know myself.  

After returning to my seat, I turned around to face the kids in the row behind me, determined not to pay this guy any more attention.  And I didn't, all the way to Triple R Ranch.

Triple R Ranch is one of my favorite places, even if I'm allergic to the air there.  (No joke, I require an inhaler to be on the premises.)  I had been going to this place on youth retreats even before I was in the youth group.  One of the many perks of being a youth pastor's kid -- which I was until my dad became a lead pastor when I was 12.  

Needless to say, I knew the drill.  There was a certain way they did things, and I knew most of them.  Take meals, for example.  

Plates, cups, cutlery, and napkins were on all the tables.  At the beginning of the meal, after prayer, one person from each table would go up and get the food and drinks for that table.  I was usually the self-appointed food-runner for my table.  And I was fast.  My table usually had all their food items before everyone else.  I can be pretty type-A when I want to be!

This guy Drew was new.  He didn't know the ways of Triple R.  He got appointed food-runner for his table at breakfast the first morning and that table was the last to get all their food.

One of our first conversations at Triple R went a little like this:

"How do you get your food so fast?"

"I don't know, I just walk fast, I guess."

"Just walking fast?  You don't run?"

"How would I run with food in my hands?"

"Oh, good point.  Well.  I bet I could beat you."

"I doubt it."

And then we were competing.  We would both make it to the food counter about the same time, stare each other down with competitive smiles, and each try to grab the first platter.  Then the race was on.  

I beat him at lunch and again at dinner.  Then he won at breakfast.  By lunch, I was back on my game and beat him again.  

Then he was sitting at my table for dinner.  Smooth.  (Did I mention he was cute?)

Just like that, we were friends.

. . . continue to part three . . .

Our Story -- Part 1

March 15th was my six-year wedding anniversary.  To celebrate, I thought I'd share "Our Story" with y'all.  I've been It's something I've been wanting to do for a while and now I finally have an excuse!  Our Story is kind of a long one when told right, so I'm going to do it in parts.  (Also, I've been working on this post for almost two weeks.  Who knew that writing out Our Story would be so difficult?!)  Enjoy!

When I was fifteen, I got a job working at the Chick-fil-A in our town.  It was my first real job besides babysitting and I loved it.  At first, I could only work Saturdays from 11-3, but when I turned sixteen, I began to work the closing shift.

Shortly after making the switch from days to nights, the night manager put me in the drive thru window.  I guess I did a pretty good job, because working the drive thru became my full-time position.

One spring evening, this guy pulled up to the window, looked at me kind of funny, and said, "Are you the pastor's daughter at Crosswalk?"

You guys.  I'm not going to lie.  I was freaked out.  I had never seen this guy before in my life.  

"Yeah," I responded, as normally as I could.  My hands were shaking as I handed him back his card; I'm sure my face was beet red and my eyes all watery.  I am not exaggerating one bit.  That's a pretty standard reaction for me when I get nervous or embarrassed.

I don't remember how the rest of the transaction went.  I purposefully put it out of my mind.  It was traumatic, y'all.  I think I blocked part of it from my memory, and even now some things are hazy.  Like... I have no idea what he looked like or what kind of car he drove (although I thought it was silver).

Anyway.  A few days later, I'm hanging out at church after service, minding my own business, chatting with friends... when I see him.

My first thought?  He followed me here; I have a stalker!  

Self-centered and dramatic?  Yeah.  But hey, I was a 16-year-old girl and homeschooled.  I feel like I was pretty entitled to create a little drama for myself at this point in my relatively drama-free life.

I mean, the possibility that he'd been going to church for a while and I'd just never seen him was a little far-fetched, right?  I was the pastor's kid.  It was pretty much my job to meet new people.  Especially tall, dark, and handsome guys in crisp white shirts and slacks.

Right.  He had definitely followed me.

And so I did what any sane 16-year-old girl would do in this situation:  hide in the bathroom.

My bathroom-hiding continued every time I saw him at church over the next month or so, and then suddenly I didn't see him any more.  In fact, three or four months went by without so much as a glimpse of him.  Not that I'm complaining.  I was so relieved.

But then, one fall day, he returned. . .

. . . continue to part two . . .