I have been thinking today about how Sonya and I met. In particular, how amazing faithful God was to get this dense headed guy to asker her out... The back story is that when Sonya and I connected and our road to our lives together really began to form, it was the third time I had asked her to consider me as a date. You see the first time was in the fall of 1999, at which time she politely told me “Thanks for asking, but I am just not interested.” This is a phrase she learned from her older sister. - Thanks Lanissa!
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The second time was in the spring of 2000, this time I tried sending flowers and anonymous poems once a week over a 4 week period - ‘cause the straight forward, “would you like to get a coffee together some time?” had fallen flat on its face. It is a tricky business when you send a woman flowers with anonymous poems. Send too few or not for a long enough period, and you fail to peak her interest enough to say yes. (when last time she said no.) Send too many or wait too long to reveal yourself and - well, in most states they call this “stalking” and judges issue restraining orders and the like. So you see, it is a high risk maneuver! - But it worked. This time around we “dated” for about 6-8 weeks. And again - from my perspective anyway - she again said she was not interested in anything more serious... 
Now this is where the amazing faithfulness of God begins to really show up... In some ways it started with the Christmas of 1999 - after Sonya had said no for the first time. You see, I was content with the first No she had given me, and had no intention of asking again... However, while home over Christmas visiting my family, my mom asked about Sonya. Thing is, I don’t actually recall ever telling my mom about Sonya. Anyway, mom asked if I had seen her again and if I was going to take her ‘No’ as her final answer? Well, that must have stuck with me, ‘cause I went back and tried the flower/stalker thing... I see that little question mom asked, as God’s first act of faithfulness in getting both of us past our initial hesitation. (Ok, maybe it was just Sonya who hesitated... But you get my point.)So the crazy thing is this. Remember in the spring of 2000? I mentioned that Sonya once again, said she wasn’t interested in anything more serious? So, I also said that, that was from my perspective... And as it turns out, my perspective as wrong... What she was saying (and what I was reading between the lines to hear that she was not interested) was that she didn’t know where she would be a in a few months after graduation, (which was a couple months away for her) and didn’t feel she could promise anything more serious until that question had been answered... She never said she was not interested in something more serious... So, this was my mistake. And we went on our own paths, because I read she was not interested and was trying to find a polite way to tell me to take a hike when she was actually just being very honest... At the time my ability to trust was low and she had no way to know that. So mistake #1 on my part... But God is faithful.
Now over the course of the next 2 years a few things were at play.
- I was gun shy and not going to risk getting hurt by Sonya by asking her again
- Sonya had found a job there in Pensacola and moved in with her sister
- Sonya began to pray for me, by name, asking God for another chance at dating me...
- And God was going to orchestrate a number of chances for me to ask her out again,
- And He was going to have friends drop hints, hints that this guy was to either too gun shy or to dense to pick up on.
- Her friend Tracy was going to tell me in a random conversation at a hockey game, that she and Sonya had talked about me on a road trip they had taken a few weeks earlier - and I missed the hint...
- I was going to run in to Sonya at a Bible study (which she would later admit, that she only went to in order to see me) where she told me she wanted to say she was sorry about how she had handled things 18 month earlier... and again, I was going to miss the hint
- A friend was going to try to get me to go on a “triple date” that would have put her and I together... and, I missed it.
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So, the spring of 2002 was over, and this afore mentioned Bible study had come to an end for the school year... My roommates and I sort of missed having a Thursday night event to go to, so we decided to have a Bible study at my place. In order of keep the tradition alive for those of us who weren’t going anywhere that summer...So the second study we had, my roommate - Dan (Same friend who had set up the “Triple Date” a few months earlier.) tells me he was going to invite the same trio of girls to the Bible study... I almost fell over laughing when he told me that, and I bet him they would never come... He said he was going to do it anyway... And Sonya came with her sister and her sisters boyfriend (now husband). The second week, she came by herself...
Now my roommate (yup. Same one) was in a production of ‘The Sound of Music’ and I need a date to go with... And here was Sonya in my house... So I waited until she walked out the door to head home for the evening and I asked her if she wanted to go with me...
I asked my soon to be wife out on our “second-first” date on my door step... Remember, I had told God, "You may just have to bring her to my front door"... The rest, as they say, is history...
So why bring this story up now? Because I needed to be reminded of just how incredibly faithful God was to honor the prayers of two people who were seeking him to bring the right person along... So faithful, that he kept making opportunities for me to ask her out, so faithful that when I asked something so ridiculous as bring her to my front door - He did just that... ‘Cause, that was what it took for me to have the courage to ask my soon to be wife out again...
