An Old Post Entitled – Our Story Part One – It Can Change in a Moment

I just stumbled upon this and can’t believe I wrote it over two years ago. It is from my old blog. I just copied it here because I guess it’s safe to say why I said yes to talking to him now. The added part is in italics. The bold has always been there, including the part about God bringing good from evil. He doesn’t use evil to cause good, but he conquers evil with good. Shah’s murder has by far been the greatest evil I have ever experienced, so the good to overcome this had better be eternal.

Thoughts on New Life Beginning a new stage in life as I prepare to marry an Iranian and figure out how to merge our lives and our cultures into one family.

It can all change in a moment

People often call attention to how fast things can change for the worst, to encourage themselves to appreciate the good times.  But sometimes things change for the better, in a  moment, in a year, and you want to share it with everything to let them know, there is hope.

How am I suddenly sitting here, in my own beautiful home, listening to my husband take a shower while I sip tea enjoy the beauty of spring?  How many years, at every major holiday have I told myself that maybe next year will be different, maybe next year I won’t be alone?  I always intended to get married right out of high school, so I’ve probably spent the last 20 years of holidays hoping that the next year I would no longer be single.  And then suddenly, with seemingly no warning, I am happily married and on a new adventure of learning to be settled and rest.

Last night my dad sent me an old blog post of mine from 2006 and I had no memory of anything I wrote.  So apparently my memory is starting to fade and so writing is becoming more important. ( I’ve even seen this is my daily life, every now and then I have to write lists because I just can’t remember it all in my head any more.)

So how did this happen?  How am I here?  It certainly didn’t come in any of the ways I expected it might come.  I didn’t meet him at a party, or at church, or with friends, or at work, or online, or in the grocery store.  A little over a year ago, January 27th to be exact (I might as well record the dates here, so that I can remember them later) a person that I don’t trust any further than I can throw him asked me if he could introduce me to his friend who lived in Iran.  I had met this guy we now call Dragon while watching Germany play in EuroCup 2012. This guy had been one of many poor choices I had made in my life and I was not at all interested in making another one. I had cut ties with him completely for several months at this point and hadn’t heard from me til he text that day to ask if he could make an introduction.  At that time I didn’t realize God was bringing good from what was intended as evil. My first thought was to say Hell No, but the Southern nice side just made the excuse, I’m not dating anyone anymore who isn’t already a Christian. To which, he replied, he is a Christian, he converted two years ago.   I eventually said, yes, because I’d always been interested in people who were willing to risk for their faith and now that he is safe in heaven, I guess it’s safe to say he had converted to Christianity two years prior. Sure I wanted to talk to him.  But never in a million years did I have any intention of dating him.  You see, I’d discovered that I had a pattern of falling for unavailable men, and who could possibly be more unavailable than a man who lived in Iran. 

Shah and I started talking on the 27th and continued talking, but I had no intentions of getting caught up in another impossible relationship. We text and he used a dictionary on his phone to translate words he didn’t know. Eventually we talked more on yahoo video chat and played virtual pool almost every night. Several times in those first months he would start talking about our possible future and his feelings and I would freak out.  If he wasn’t so awesome about responding with full understanding and patience, this never would have happened. 

Ever since my well traveled friend Simon came back from Istanbul about 4 years ago and told me it was his favorite place, it has been at the very top of my travel list.  So when Shah suggested we meet in Istanbul, I decided it would be fun.  Seriously, if you know me, you know I’ve done crazier things.  I’d tried to plan a trip to Istanbul by myself a few years before, so how was it possibly that much crazier to meet a semi stranger there?

I knew Shah had high hopes for our visit, but I had none.  I was splitting my vacation time between Amsterdam and Istanbul, and quite frankly, I was more interested in seeing male friends from Amsterdam.  But it all changed when I saw him at the airport, on May 29, 2013.  He had an air of confidence about him as he walked towards me holding those roses, and I knew I was going to fall for him.

Shah is done with the shower and is chopping vegetables so that we can take shirazi salad to the Easter Picnic, so I’d better go get dressed and join him.  I’ll have to continue this later.

Posted 20th April 2014 by cjw
Labels: Our story