So It Begins

I’m having a hard time deciding on the purpose of this blog – which is precisely the cause of the scarce amount of posts. And I think this is why I have always failed at blogging. I read several too many blogs, and almost all of them have a recurring theme; DIY-ing, home-making, cooking, natural-living, theology in general, Biblical manhood and womanhood, youth ministry, women’s ministry…and the list goes on and on. The blogs I always secretly hope have new posts belong to 2 completely different people – and they just blog about what inspires them. Love that.

So, for my sanity, I’ll just say that the purpose of this blog is to chronicle my adventures in life and develop the myriad of thoughts inspired by whatever crosses my path on a given day.

The Beginning…

The Proposal

Second installment from the wedding website…

Our proposal didn’t take place in the span of four words. Instead, Ben worked hard to make the day of our engagement a love story all its own.

That Friday, both of us had to work, but we remained connected through emails. Ben took full advantage of this connection by sending me the most heart-felt, sincere, declaration-of-love emails I’ve ever received. It’s difficult to explain without actually sharing the emails (which I won’t do), but there was so much energy and anticipation between each email. I must admit I thought to myself several times, ”Could this be the day!?” The content of the emails wasn’t that far out of the ordinary, but for some reason I was more giddy than ever, and he seemed to be as well.

Ben asked if I wanted to watch the sunset from the mountain after dinner (which is something we’d done several times, but had not made the time for in quite a while). Again, nothing out of the ordinary. I met him for dinner, and this is when the out-of-the-ordinary events commenced.

First, Ben couldn’t finish his dinner…never happens.

Second, when we left the house Kennon yelled after us, “Have fuuun!” with a big smile on his face. That never happens, either.

Third, while driving, Ben kept turning down the radio to tell me sweet somethings.

Fourth, when we got up to the range (mountain), Ben wanted to go for a walk on the trails. While walking, he kept singing one line of a Dave Barnes song, over, and over, and over: ”butterflies in my stomach, keep my feet off of the ground.” Ben has this habit of singing “theme-songs” of sorts. Whatever we (or he) is doing will remind him of a song, he’ll start singing…and won’t stop. So I became curious. Why would he be singing about butterflies in his stomach? And why is he walking so fast that his feet might actually be missing the ground?

Now I had butterflies in my stomach. At this point I was convinced, and the anticipation was just too much for me to handle, so I said, “I need to sit down. Can we go back and watch the sunset now?”

We made it back to a little spot that Ben had sneakily staked out earlier and laid a fresh bouquet of pretty flowers on. Mmmhm, I thought. Something’s up. We laid out a blanket, and sat facing the sun that was sitting just above the mountain tops. I put my hand on the back of his head to rub his hair and felt that his head was all sweaty. Ben started saying romantic things, things which I can’t remember at all. I was so nervous! Then all of a sudden he says, ”Do you still have gum in your car?”

I was a little baffled, but said yes, and handed him the keys. I was so anxious that I didn’t even notice the gum he was already chewing. As it turns out, I was sitting to the left of Ben, and the ring happened to be in his left pocket. The gum was simply a ploy to switch the ring to the other side.

As Ben was walking back up the hill, I was looking down at my phone texting my dear friend, Ashley. As I hit send, Ben tossed the keys in front of me, I started to set the phone down, and looked up to see Ben on his knees. My initial thought was, ”Aww…poor thing fell!”

Then I noticed his eyes full of tears and this ring glaring at me.

I’m still shocked at how taken by surprise I was in that moment. I was pretty confident the proposal was coming, but lucky for Ben, my text to Ashley completely distracted me. Here he was kneeling to ask for my hand in marriage; here I was thinking he tripped up a mountain!

I just wrapped my arms around him and kept giggling and saying “yes” over and over. When he finally got the ring on the right finger (mainly because I offered him my right hand. Those nerves will get ya!), we hugged and hugged and hugged, and I watched the sun finally set below the mountains. Ben missed that part, but something tells me he didn’t care so much about the sunset anymore.

Our Love Story

My main inspiration for starting this blog was primarily due to my failure to record important, cherish-able moments throughout mine and Ben’s growing relationship. Falling in love, getting engaged, and getting married was something I’d yearned for a very long time. I could not wait to be a wife! I spent probably too much time day dreaming about who the man would be, how we’d fall in love, etc., etc. I also spent a lot of time journaling about such things – so when those events actually started to unravel, I was so wrapped up in them during those moments (which I don’t regret, necessarily), I completely neglected my journal (which I do regret).

On to the point of this post. Ben and I created a wedding website shortly after our engagement, which included bios, our love story, and our proposal story.

And now I bring you our love story, copied directly from our wedding web site.

“A star shone at the hour of our meeting.”

The story of their meeting and the story of their love are relatively distinct… 

During their second semester at Liberty, while still completely unaware of each others’ existence, Shi and Ben both happened to register for the same Church Ministries class. On the second day of class (January of 2008), Ben joined Shi and two others, and the standard LU introductions began…

“Where are you from? What’s your major? What year are you?” Shi, having made a mental note early on that Ben was cute, was completely shocked to discover Ben was a freshman. That made Ben 19, and Shi 22. Weird! Much to Ben’s dismay, Shi determined to view Ben as a brother and a friend, and nothing more.

Despite their age difference the two discovered they thoroughly enjoyed talking with one another, and on a few occasions they spent time together outside of class. Once the spring semester ended, however, their interaction over the next year and a half would be very sparse (but Shi remembers, in great detail, every one of those encounters! Coincidence?…).

Fast forward almost 2 years. The date was December 18, 2009 (Shi only knows this because she gets paid to know the start and end dates of every semester at LU), and Lynchburg was experiencing the first wave of its greatest snow storm in ~8 years. Due to the nature of her driveway, Shi took some sound advice and set out to ask the neighbors across the street if she could park in their very large driveway. After an interesting exchange of information with a shirtless guy who didn’t actually live in the house, Shi was given permission to park in the neighbors’ driveway. 

Upon their return from the grocery store a few hours later (snow significantly slows things down  in the Burg), Shi and her friend, Kaitlyn, parked in the driveway across the street. All of a sudden a guy stepped onto the front porch, and Shi immediately yelled (over the noise of the blizzard), “Thanks again for letting us park in your driveway!”

Guy: “Yea, no problem!”

Upon hearing the voice, Shi paused. The voice coming from the porch sounded familiar but it seemed like quite a stretch that she might actually know the guy standing there, barely visible through all the snow. At this point she had been standing there staring intently trying to make out a face for too long, so she broke the silence with a question: “Ben?”

Intrigued, the guy stepped forward and responded: “Yea?”

Shi couldn’t believe it! She excitedly erupted, “Oh my gosh! Hey! It’s Shiana!” At this point Ben forsook the shelter of the covered porch and met Shi down in the yard. The two excitedly exchanged stories and learned that they had been neighbors for over half a year and had no idea until that very moment.

Within the next month Ben instituted what he would call “Neighbor Game Night,” which (conveniently for Ben) consisted solely of Shi and Ben every week. Neighbor Game Night eventually evolved into dinner for two, and culminated in a Valentine’s Banquet, or in Ben’s words, “Valentine’s dinner thing,” (which Ben swears was their first date but Shi refuses to accept). It was there in the fellowship hall of Piney Grove Baptist Church, during a game of musical chairs (of all things!) that Shi knew. She found herself watching him during the game, and at some point when his eyes met hers, she just knew. She knew that, despite concerted efforts to view him as “just a brother and friend,” she had undeniable feelings for him and wanted more than a friendship with him. For the first time in years, she actually wasn’t terrified of committing and was ready to commit right then and there.

A few weeks later, after laughing through an entire volume of “The Far Side Gallery,” Ben nervously said: “I don’t really know much about relationships…” to which Shi replied with a laugh, “I don’t either.” Then Ben asked, “Well, do you want to figure it out with me? We can learn all of this together?” She didn’t hesitate for a second with her response.

And so it began…

New Name, New Blog

Based on my previous track record with blogs (see here or here), the thought of starting yet another one is something I’ve dismissed for a few weeks. I could have just picked up where I left off on Blogger, but decided against it because my life is so completely different now. And that is precisely what I want to Blog about – life as I now know it.

This blog is for me. I’m not motivated to entertain or inspire anyone – though that would be an added bonus! I’m motivated to record what’s going on in my life; what I’m learning, how I’m changing, what makes me laugh and cry. I completely neglected my journal during a once-in-a-lifetime season, and I regret that so much. This is my remedy – chronicling all the best and worst memories that my finite mind will surely fail to remember in the coming years – if God grants them.

Welcome to life as I know it!