True Luv

One of the many things I like about Facebook is the ability to see conversations taking place between your "friends," even if they don't include you. That is, if you are on someone's friend list, you can see everything on that person's "profile," including comments on pictures, "wall-to-wall" dialogue, etc. Have I lost you? If so, you need to consider joining Facebook so you'll be in the know!

Anyway, it's fun to see some of the snippets that go back and forth between the "younger generation." They're so affectionate and loving with their friends: It seems every conversation or comment ends with "Luv ya!" or "I miss you so much!" or "I love you too!" But to be honest, what caused me to sit down here and start typing out my thoughts was a very innocuous comment I read from a boyfriend to his girlfriend when she was apparently signing off for the night: "I love you too, babe."

Don't ask me why, but that really struck me. "I love you too, babe." Do teenagers really tell each other that they love each other in the romantic sense of the word? Oh, I know that by even typing that sentence I sound so naive--of course they do. When you're fifteen, sixteen, seventeen and dating your high school sweetheart it must be love, right? It's just that reading those words caused me to think about how completely different my story was.

When I was growing up, they didn't come any more timid than me. If I could have literally blended into the woodwork, I would have done so cheerfully. I had terribly low self-esteem, and I watched my friends from, oh, say middle school on up becoming popular, becoming part of the "in" crowd, pairing off with boys and having what looked like the perfect life. Naturally, I know better now, and I can't even say that I ever felt jealousy back then, because I actually picked good friends who didn't dump me just because I wasn't popular. But I do remember wishing I could untie my tongue in social situations; I remember wishing my heart wouldn't beat so hard within my chest at a party (a church party, of course--remember, I was a loser who didn't get invited to other parties) that I was sure everyone could hear it; I remember wishing I could laugh more easily, be funnier, be anything besides a dork when boys were around.

My general dorkiness stretched over my junior high and high school years and right into college. No kidding: I had been told by my parents for so long that guys were "intimidated" by me that I had all but given up trying to snag one. Oh, sure, the occasional guy would catch my eye but I just seemed to lack some necessary trait that would seal the deal and land me a boyfriend. I'm actually so thankful in retrospect that I didn't go through all the drama that so many of my peers did, but I suppose when I was younger I did feel quite sorry for myself. And needless to say, I hadn't uttered a single "I love you" to a guy who wasn't a family member by the time I was 21.

After I graduated from college and went to work, God began one of His greatest works in my life up to that time. And while I didn't realize it at the time, it wasn't much longer before it became clear to me that He used my shyness to work His will in me. See, it just so happens (for those of you who don't know) that I met Randy after we had both graduated from college, and it was most definitely NOT love at first sight for either of us. In fact, we have both laughed as we have retold the story about how my introduction to Randy was not a physical introduction; rather I was introduced to the idea of Randy by some of his former roommates, close friends who nevertheless spoke of Randy as an anal, nagging, altogether obnoxious person (at least to live with) who expected his roommates to, you know, actually clean their apartment once in a while. Why, the audacity he had to expect them to put the milk back in the refrigerator or wash their supper dishes!

They also joked about what they considered his peculiar sense of humor and while I don't guess I understood this at the time, now I see (especially since these old friends are still so near and dear to both of us) that for all their blustering, they actually loved Randy very much. However, that is the stage that had been set for me by the time I met Randy for the very first time.

Randy got a job at what is now 21st Century Christian, working part-time in the bookstore and shipping department while he completed his master's degree at Lipscomb. I had no such aspirations and was just thankful to have found a job as an editor after graduation. I will admit, too, that by this time I was thinking about my future, not what I was going to do career-wise per se, but who I was going to marry and settle down with. Perhaps I should have mentioned way back at the beginning that the #1 goal I'd had my entire life was to marry a preacher. Why? I have no idea. But I assure you, THAT was my highest priority.

Things looked pretty grim after graduation: I had no prospects and was living all by myself in a little apartment in Nashville, with no life to speak of outside of my job at 21stCC. My colleagues truly became my family, but I was very lonely. And then along came George. Heaven forbid if he should ever read this--I think every single person in my life has heard this story except him! George came to work at 21stCC before Randy, I think, and because he was doing some preaching on the side, I decided that he must be the man God intended for me to spend my life with. But you know something? Old habits really do die hard, and almost from the moment I decided that I "liked" George, I simply could not be myself around him. Tongue-tied? You bet. Completely ill at ease? Naturally. Clearly, I had a lot to learn about attracting a guy.

So, in an effort to spend time with George, I enlisted the help of Randy, without his knowledge of course. It became our daily habit to go out to lunch, just the three of us, and while I was busy NOT talking to George so that he would somehow surmise that I liked him, Randy and I would chat up a storm. Man oh man, we could talk for hours! I had nothing to be nervous about, you see. I mean, it was just anal, nagging, obnoxious Randy! Certainly I didn't need to be nervous around him!

God has such a sense of humor.

To make a much-too-long story just slightly shorter, suffice it to say that after months of lunches, which turned to friendly dinners (and I mean that in the truest sense of the word), which then required some gentle prodding by my mother to make me realize that I was fooling myself when I said Randy and I were "just friends," we finally made the decision to start dating. Exclusively. George who??

And one fateful evening when a video we were watching ran long (it ran long, by the way, because we talked so much through it that we had to keep rewinding it), I remember getting sleepy and excusing myself to go wash my face. Understand: that was HUGE. Prior to that time I would never in a hundred million years have even dreamed of allowing a guy to see me without my makeup on. And then it hit me: I loved this guy. This was not infatuation; it wasn't a fly-by-night romance; this was the real thing. This was IT.

And that night as Randy was preparing to leave, as he stood in the stairwell of my apartment building, in fact, I uttered the words that eluded me for so many years: "Randy, I love you."

And may I just say, he was definitely worth the wait.