My wife's parents both have a background with Campus Crusade for Christ (CRU), they were both actually saved and met in CRU. They are also professors at UCLA. Likely so, I went to the rival school (USC) and was also on leadership for CRU.
It was fall of my senior year and a girl name Tammy and one of her friends came to my CRU meeting at USC. Being a good student leader, I introduced myself. She was three years older than me and had just returned from Scandinavia, where she was on a mission trip. At the time, she was also raising support to go do ministry through CRU at the University of Washington. Furthermore, I learned that she actually attended the same church as me, but I think she forgot because when I saw her at church a few weeks later, she thought I might have stalked her there.
A short while after graduation, I was also thinking about raising support, but God called me to work in the industry instead. So, I identified people I wanted to support instead. Tammy was one of them as well as others who were working in Hollywood and LA. Side note, there was a tragic situation when Tammy and I first met. She formed a very inaccurate opinion of me. When I introduced myself, she was on a higher-level seat, so she thought I was too short and way too young for her. Moreover, she wanted a guy who was on staff at CRU. I was 0-3 in her book. So, as you can imagine, she was not into me, but I was into her. I still knew about her life once she left, because she sent out monthly letters to update her supporters. She even actually visited me once every three years, for the next ten years.
In 2006, we went on our first "fake" date. She was working on a Summer Project in San Diego, about a half mile from my house. Her team was doing a "staff hunt," where they were supposed to dress up in character and try to find each other throughout the city. Tammy grabbed one of my friends and I and asked us on a "fake" date to hide from her staff. She was all dolled up and it worked well, only one group found us. Personally, I thought there was a spark, so I called her up after to hang out, and unfortunately, she said she was too busy. But it didn't stop here. While all this was happening, I was also sending out monthly email stories to friends and she chose to receive them. So, she got to know about my life through that, while I was getting to know about her life through update letters.
A few more years passed and I had to let her know that I was going to have to stop supporting her. I was heading off to Grad School and it just wasn't possible financially. After I stopped supporting her, we continued to have some friendly conversation. I sent her a book to read and also a portrait with some encouraging notes. (I do that for a lot of people, so it wasn't only for her). She let me know her mom was having a surgery and that she would be coming back into town. Unfortunately, she was still not interested.
I then asked her if I could fly to Seattle to check it out over a break. She was still not too interested and a little angry actually that she had to pick me up from the airport. On the way to the airport though, her heart changed and when she saw me, her perception of me changed. I was a bit thrown off, to be honest. It didn't make sense. But after 9 years, I was no longer short and no longer too young. All the objections were not there anymore, but I hadn't changed at all. It's funny looking back because she had prejudice and I had pride. So we have a little Pride and Prejudice love story. We had a good time together, but I was headed back to grad school on the East coast and needed to have a DTR (Define The Relationship) with her. Our relationship would have to be long distance and I would be doing a rigorous Masters program. So, we decided to go on a hike and to talk about our status on the top of the mountain. After all the years of pursuing her, I said that I didn't want to date because long distance would just be too much. She was pretty sad and a few more years went by.
A while later, I finished Grad School and moved back to L.A. We were friends on Facebook and I would see she was dating people, but I never dated, because I was content with where I was. I almost stopped all communication but continued to send out my monthly emails to her. We connected again somehow one day and coincidentally, I had written a letter that I was thinking about giving to her. I asked some people if I should send it and pursue her, but I ended up never sending it.
Another year went by and I got an email from her asking me out to coffee. The moment I got it, I was like, "Oh this is going to work!" I appreciated her reaching out to me and showing me that she was still interested.
So we met up and had breakfast in Santa Monica ending our time only with a goodbye hug because I told her I wanted to pray about starting a relationship first. So I went for a run on the beach, prayed for 20 minutes, and then called her and told her I wanted to hang out again before she went home. We had a second DTR and decided to be intentional and date long distance. I came to her door with flowers and she felt like it was all going to work as well. The moment we started dated everything felt pretty good. The only source of tension was our sense of humor. But, If our humor was the only thing holding us back, I decided it was still worth the risk. Her humor has totally changed and now we laugh and we have a really good time. We ended up dating for 5 months and I proposed to her in the October of that year and then got married 5 months after that.
Advice To Singles:
God is sovereign and works despite your best efforts. In the end, you can try all you want, but it is not going to happen unless God wants it to, because it has to be part of his plan. God can use all the online dating, blind dates, etc. but in the end, he is going to work in that area of your life how he wants to.
Dating is a form of self-care. It is about managing loneliness, the hardship of wanting companionship, and learning about yourself.
There is something unique about being in a relationship and the way in which it grows you as a person.
Your efforts should be about taking care of yourself and not getting a marriage out of it. When you view dating as the way you find your wife or husband, it is way too much responsibility.
When you date too much, you burn out. But if you date too little, you can get self- insular.
Every dating relationship will fail until you find the person you marry; so don't see them as failures, but as growing experiences.
