Dispatches From Rick G

As you may have heard, earlier this summer I met a woman named Kelley. Kelley is the most beautiful, charming and inspiring person I have ever met. She has come into my life as a gift from a God who always finds new ways to bless and amaze and essentially, show-off. I find myself way outside of my league with her and I now know beyond any doubt that Kelley and I were created to be man and wife. We were handcrafted for one another to walk side-by-side. She complements my every need and supplies the love and beauty that I have longed for most of m 29 years. Kelley is more than my dream. In fact, I could have never created her. I tried.

Ever since I was 16, I wrote a letter to my future wife on Valentines Day. That is 13 letters in 13 years for those of you who are keeping score. Initially I would just write trite things to her like what I thought her hair color would be or what her name was and how it looked with my last name. Over the years, I started to write my hopes for her…what I hoped she was doing…who I hoped she was. In the past few years, I have written about why she was worth waiting for. I told her that I had never given myself away…I had never kissed another woman intimately…I had never uttered the words, I love you, to another. 13 years. 13 letters. And then this year, a month before meeting Kelley I did something else. I threw them away. All 13 letters.

I stood over a Rubbermaid trashcan and realized that I was tired of waiting for her. I had spent the previous year in Maryland coming to terms with what seemed like my own perpetual bachelorhood, giving it much thought and much angst in the process. I decided that she wasn’t even out there and I just resigned myself to being married to the ministry. I left my predilections of my non-existent wife in that trashcan amongst the old pizza and soda cans that seemed to define the life that I was married to.

And then I met Kelley.

I realize now that I needed to divorce myself from my mental and emotional construct of my wife in order to be prepared for actually meeting her. I had tried to assume God's role of creating her and nurturing her and shaping her and in the process, I removed the joy of actually discovering her. Basically, I could have never created Kelley…God knows this and saved me for a time in my life when I surrendered the desire to. I have spent most of my life trying to create God’s Will for my life. Right down to the woman that God had for me since the foundations of the world were laid. I would rather presume to know what God has in store for me than assume that He is in charge and a far greater judge of what my life needs…and who for that matter.

I had created someone with a simple life that allowed me to join simply. I created someone with little life experience that could learn from my experience…offering little to teach me in return. I created someone who was beautiful, but not captivating. Inventing someone who had intelligence without independence. In short, I created someone who was never there. Someone that I thought I wanted, but no one that I really needed. Meanwhile, God created Kelley.

Kelley’s life is anything but simple. She is brave enough to have loved a person literally to death and even braver for choosing to continue to live a life of love in the wake of unspeakable loss. She is a mother to two brilliantly beautiful children. Two children who have walked in the path carefully navigated by her…through the most heart-wrenching episodes that life could deal. She is stunningly beautiful. I don’t know that I will ever understand how someone so completely, stunningly captivating could ever grows to love me with such abandon. But God’s design usually mocks our understanding and challenges our assumed value.

Kelley is so giving as to be self-less. She has taught me more in the 3½ months that I have known her than almost anyone else has in a lifetime of relationships. I find myself learning from her strength, from her vulnerability, from her heartache, from her trust, from her resolve, from her love…a love that truly seeks to give itself away. I discovered someone who can do life without me, but chooses me to come along side her and her children. You cannot imagine how humbling it is to know that in her independence she finds her yearning for partnership.

I had created a young debutant with the easy life and carefree situation. God created a 30 year-old mother of two that has the most life, most love, most Jesus of any person I could have hoped to meet. I had my thoughts…God had his perfect plan. I had my letters…God had His story that he has been weaving from the beginning. I hope to allow Him to write my letter to her as beautifully as God has written hers to me.

Jesus, thank for creating Kelley, disregarding my input...and loving me extravagantly.

- R