The Proposal

My guy proposed to me on Grandfather Mountain in August of 2004, only six days after he flew home a from a two-month mission trip to Kenya.

He bought my ring from a jeweler in Africa. From the way he tells it, he wasn't really quite sure the whole deal was going to go down until the moment he actually had the ring in his hand (scary!). The stone he chose for the ring, Tanzanite, comes from Tanzania, Africa, and has some rare qualities to it that he felt truly symbolized God's workings in our relationship, the foremost of which was the process by which Tanzanite becomes beautiful. In its raw state, Tanzanite is typically a reddish brownish, unattractive ore. The skilled artisan, though, can take this ore and pass it through red-hot flames to burn away the impurities, revealing the blue violet gem that is considered so rare and pure.

So on August 5th, 2004, my guy took me high up on a mountain, served me a meal, washed my feet, told me many things that he had been storing up in his heart for two months while in Kenya, pulled out this perfectly-symbolic ring, and waited. And waited. And waited.

And I waited. And waited. And waited.

And it occurred to one of us somewhere along the way, that I was actually waiting for the real, live question, you know, "Will...you...marry...me?"

He had really gotten so nervous that he forgot to actually "pop the question!" I, being equally as anxious about it all, didn't know how to prompt him to do so without risking messing the whole thing up. It was incredibly awkward and hilarious all at the same time, but somewhere in the midst of all of that I did manage to say yes. :)

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I sent him a quick text to remind him today of this moment five years ago, and asked him if marriage has been the "hardest thing he's ever loved" - a question I sometimes ask people when they've devoted their love to something or someone that is incredibly challenging, such as foster parenting or a prodigal child. Without skipping a beat, he texted right back, "Not hard to love, but loved harder than anything I ever have." What a man! (And, oh how true...)