High School Sweethearts

As hard as it will be for our children to imagine, we were indeed their age once. The struggles, anticipations, and thrills of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood are, as Solomon reminded us, “nothing new under the sun.”  One day, when our children are grown, Michael and I will want some record of “our story” to remind our children that we were 18 years old once. And even then, God was working for our good and preparing us for one another. In many ways, we pray that God will work differently in our children’s lives (sparing them from petty heartbreak and unnecessary relationships). Hopefully they won’t be so presently minded that they develop this hazy and distant idea that our marriage was arranged or that somehow, one day, we were just married, and that is page one of the Cranford family history.

So here’s a bit of self-deprecating background to begin. One was in the Fellowship of Christian Puppeteers, competing with rival Baptist churches for the most talented and creative puppet shows in Stanly County, and the other was in 4-H, pledging her “head to clearer thinking, heart to greater loyalty, hands to larger service, and health to better living,” all of which culminated in the creation of a homemade navy floral vest worn proudly for years to come. Apparently we were meant to be.

Michael joined the ranks of the modest Covenant Classical School in the 9^th grade and began playing basketball, the scene where we first met. He was good at basketball and I was not. Just as well could have been rugby for me (is that the sport where you take the ball and run with it? No dribbling? Yep that's it).  We crossed paths that year without much notice from me. I was far too preoccupied with schoolwork and other boys, one in particular who developed a close friendship with the man at hand. Oh, and he began dating my best friend. Yes, all those things kept him off the radar.

During the summer before our senior year, Covenant nearly closed its doors, ties were cut with said friend of Michael, and upheaval characterized my life—at least as much upheaval as a 17 year old with nothing to really complain about can experience. The school did carry on, but barely, and our senior year was spent soliciting CCS parents, who served as “janitor” that year, for money in exchange for doing their job of cleaning the school. That fundraiser allowed us to go on our senior trip, and the parents appreciated it, too! But I digress.

In our small graduating class of 12, my exposure to Michael seemed to close in, much like two people trapped in a room with walls that get closer and closer together. Months before he had broken up with my friend, so I was just the best friend who got to hear the traumatic breakup story.  Nearly a year later, during volleyball season, my coach and most of my teammates began teasing me about M’s increased interest in me, but I paid little attention, mostly because I didn’t believe them. I finally had no choice but to admit they were right. After a weekend in Tennessee for a volleyball tournament, we arrive at the school to be picked up by mom or dad, and who is there to pick me up but M himself?! “Seriously?” I ask myself. “What kind of conspiracy are he and my parents operating around here?” As cordially as I could, I thanked him for the ride, a tad annoyed at the presumption.  But I still thought of him often, and I was truly thankful for his creativity and well, let’s just be honest, his attention. He had matured in the three years I had known him, from the tall, lanky 9^th grader who once referred to me as “Medusa” after a perm gone wrong, to this: a polite, thoughtful, and Godly high school senior.

We began “dating” (sort of a date-ship if you will) on February 18, 2003, four or five months after we had both decided separately to attend Wingate. Having grown up Baptist, Michael was in for quite the awakening as he began attending our Reformed Presbyterian church with our family. It didn’t take him long to figure out why I wasn’t gaga over The Purpose Driven Life, one of his gifts to me early in our relationship. We laugh about it now. At the time I remember feigning appreciation but wanting anxiously to sermonize him on the bogus theology of Rick Warren.  Thankfully, the moment came later when we could talk openly about it.  Michael buckled down and made theology a serious study for him, something I continue to respect about him.

Once we began college, God provided us with an incredible foundation of friends who loved the Lord and shared much in common with us. We had a wonderful time that year.  When the end of freshman year came, I panicked and broke up with Michael, claiming that we were young, I didn’t know what I wanted, it’s-not-you-it’s-me type stuff. I was devastated and questioned my decision, he called often and still graciously gave me my space, and I questioned whether I really wanted more space. We got back together after the summer and all was good until the end of our junior year, when it happened again. We both had plans to spend a semester in London the following fall, and the walls felt like they were closing in on me again—walls that I now know were self-built and self-suffocating.

That summer, we parted ways intermittently. With M working at Razzoo’s and me at Carrabbas, we saw each other occasionally but it was usually strained. I was excessively reflective, always second-guessing my choices, and he was growing (I thought) indifferent. Not sure when it happened, but by the time we arrived in London in September of 2006, we were somehow a couple again. So much a couple that he had bought a ring, picked it up the day we left for London, and stashed it in his suitcase for our three month vacation, er, semester abroad.

Alas, I never saw the diamond in England because I made a comment early in our trip that I would want to be near family whenever we got engaged, a comment he took to mean there’s no way I’d want to be proposed to on the Tower Bridge, or in Kensington Gardens, or on the lawn of Westminster Abbey. Otherwise, I found the time abroad with M to be rejuvenating and eye-opening. I grew to love him there, in a way unlike the previous 3 years. I had seen him forgive, forget, love, protect, and cherish me before, but so much of it became new when we were away from our homes and our communities. Some of my fondest memories there are of the two of us venturing around the city together, touring Westminster Abbey or eating at Rainforest Café (no, not an authentic British restaurant… go figure.)

True love wouldn’t be true love without obstacles, would it? Nope, and that’s what I told myself when we came home and over the following few months leading up to graduation. Excluding details unnecessary to our “happily ever after,” M and I hit some snags in the way of a certain woman with the inability to keep her feet at home. After a short crisis that put our relationship to the test, all was put to bed (no pun intended) and Wingate became just an experience in our rear view.  We were engaged in February and married in December.

 As Michael and I approach our five year wedding anniversary on December 1, I can reflect back on both Michael’s and more astoundingly, God’s goodness, to me in preparing me for marriage. Michael’s retelling of the story could include verbiage a bit more scathing and bitter, given my whimsical nature as a young girl. Any normal onlooker would have warned him to get out while the getting’s good. But with time comes an incredible sense of perspective of “our story,” an ability to laugh at the triviality of it all and an incredibly grateful heart that Michael was so persistent. In a culture where girls are encouraged to initiate, pursue, and claim responsibility for the status of their relationships, how sweet it is to tell of my husband who never permitted me to behave that way.

We trust God to bring spouses to our children one day. We hope their stories will tell of even greater faithfulness and commitment to pleasing God. In the meantime, thank goodness my chief worries right now are limited to teaching Eli to, you know, talk and stuff.