You know, they say that things will happen when they are supposed to happen and to try and force an issue knocks nature out of balance. In order to have Spring, you must have Winter. All things have to have a chance to mature, to grow and to evolve naturally in order for the balance to remain. You pick an apple too soon and yes, it's still an apple, but it's often bitter and bad for you to eat. Left to ripen and mature that same apple can come to be the best thing that you have ever eaten.
Relationships are the same way. In order to know love, you must have known heartache. And in order to find true love and happiness you have to allow yourself to open up and let someone else become more important to you than you are to yourself. When the time comes you don't feel it in your head or even your heart. You feel it in your soul.
Julie often asks me if I wished that we had met sooner than later, gotten married earlier, avoided all the heartache that we had suffered before? My answer is always NO. We met at the time in our life that God intended us to meet. If we had met sooner, out of sync if you will, then it would have thrown the balance of things off and all of those things that happened to us, that molded us into the people that we are, would have never happened and we would not have what we have today. Like high school sweethearts that break up and then come together again 30 years later. God had other plans for them and then brought them back around.
Most people don't know that while Julie and I were dating, I broke up with her because I wasn't ready to be married again. I didn't feel that it was right and I refused to fail again. I was afraid of that commitment. I refused to open my heart and soul and I couldn't see that the person I let go was the best thing in my life. It was during this time of reflection and self realization that I finally realized that I wasn't afraid of failure, I was afraid of SUCCESS. I was afraid because what I felt was, for the first time in my entire life, true, deep, passionate love and that her love for me was completely unconditional. No strings. No hidden agendas. Nothing. But. Love. I, like most people, thought that I had felt love before, but it had been a conditional, what's in it for me love. What Julie was offering me was a love that I had never felt before and it scared me. I ran because I kept waiting for something awful to happen. Once I overcame those fears, my life changed for the best.
11 years ago today I made the best decision I have ever made and I married my beautiful wife. If your interested in all the mushy details, you can read all about the here, Our wedding. Julie, I thank God every day that he brought us together when he did and that he opened my eyes and made me see what was right in front of me. The perfect woman for me. My soul mate. A lot of people use that term loosely; Soul mate. But I honestly feel that no matter what, we didn't meet by chance. We were joined by fate. Destined by God to meet. Our souls were brought together at the perfect time in our life's so that we could spent eternity walking beside each other, hand in hand. I couldn't ask for a better wife, friend, companion and lover. We have been through things that would and have destroyed most relationships. These hurdles, instead of driving us apart, have bonded us together.
Happy Anniversary Julie.
I will love you always.
