For those of you who know me,
I’m not really the type of guy who advertises that he’s looking for a date, even on the Internet.  It took me by surprise that I’d even do something like this.  I would have to say that one night in early June, 1999, I was really bored and just surfing the net when I happened upon Excite’s Classifieds 2000 area.  I surfed onto the Women seeking Men area and did a search, mostly out of curiosity – you know: Christian, non-smoker, non-drinker, taller, athletic build, no kids, wants kids, in the age range of 25 to 35, with a photo.  Out of 300,000 or so personals guess how many came up … ?  Three.  Okay, I was thinking that this was really pathetic.  There have got to be more than three women in cyberspace that match my idealism.  Well, I got up the nerve to post my own ad and while it may have sounded somewhat arrogant, I got very specific about the type of woman I was looking for.  I received maybe a half dozen replies from other people.  Some of the replies to my ad were somewhat sarcastic, like the one woman who wrote me and said (and I quote), “Good luck.  The woman you’re looking for doesn’t exist.  Hope you like being single.”  I don’t think the ad was up more than a week or so before I got a very interesting e-mail from a certain someone’s little sister …

     Okay, so for quite a while, my sister Sheree, also known as “The Baby”, had been concerned about the state of my love life (or rather the lack of one!).  Having  recently graduated from college, Sheree was home with the folks in Alabama.  Sometimes out of boredom and curiosity, she surfed around on the internet checking out the classifieds.  So for me,  it was not a totally uncommon thing to receive an e-mail from the Baby with three links for personal ads on the internet.  Two of the ads were “ho-hum”, but I was intrigued by what she wrote about the third ad.  “Donna, this guy is describing you!”

     I guess I was pretty specific about the type of woman I was interested in, at least I knew a lot of what I didn’t want in a person and the rest was sort of open.  If you’ve taken the time to read the ad you’ll notice how specific I was in many respects.  What I wasn’t expecting was the e-mail from this person “Sheree” who wanted to introduce me to her sister.  Here’s what The Baby wrote to me:

This is a response to your advertisement on Excite Classifieds & Auctions.
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Male Seeking Female: Long-term, 35 y/o, 6 ft. 2 in. tall, Wenatchee, WA
Beau looking for Belle
http://classifieds2000.com/cgi-cls/ad.exe?P61+C180+R3330896
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the woman you are looking for is actually out there. i know, b/c she's my sister. the only difference she has than what you described is that she is 33. a very young 33. she is very beautiful, intelligent, creative, spiritual, and funny. let me elaborate a little!

beautiful--she once spent a summer in LA working as a nurse and taking modeling. she was offered the position of being the nurse for john paul mitchell in hawaii during his last years. she has beautiful long brown  hair and green eyes.

intelligent--she uses words that the rest of us have never even heard of! you  would be astounded at the conversations you could get out of her. she has a degree in nursing and i think she also has some kind of degree in communications.

creative and spiritual--she is a musician. she has written four musicals and over a hundred songs. one of her songs was on the ballot list to be nominated for a dove award last year. all of her music is to praise God and lead people to Him. so many people have been touched by her music, and God continues to bless her with her great talents. many mornings she will call my parents with her latest song.  we are a very close family.

funny--this goes along with intelligent. she can come up with some of the funniest you will ever hear.

so does she sound too good to be true? you should write her. what can it hurt? her e-mail address is ...

so why am i writing you and not her? she is way too modest to brag on herself, and any woman who would fit your profile would have to be bragging about themselves. i, on the other hand, have no trouble bragging about my sister! she is one of the most amazing people i have ever met! find out for yourself!

sheree

     There was a very good reason I had The Baby respond for me. Yes, I did feel that with a couple of exceptions (I was 2 months older than Beau’s top age of 32, and I didn’t own land, only an aging LeBaron convertible) I fit his list of “qualifications.”  However, if I wrote back saying ‘Yes, I’m this, and this, and I’m so-o-o-o-o-o-o wonderful’ I would come across as the most conceited person on earth.  Henceforth, I had Sheree respond for me – I mean, she could brag about me without consequence (and boy, she did a nice job, didn’t she!).

     Needless to say, I was definitely intrigued by the Baby’s reply.  I had been conversing with a number of other women who had responded to my ad, but somehow this one really stuck out as different.  I wrote Donna at her Compuserve address and we seemed to really hit it off from the beginning.  What really impressed me the most was her desire to bring God into the relationship from the start.  This is what she ended her first e-mail to me with:

All less important things like appearance, job, and accomplishments aside, how would I honestly love to be described the most? "She loves Jesus, and everything she's spent countless hours working on in her life, all the songs, all the musicals, everything - is her best effort to glorify Him, to try to show others how wonderful life can be when your best friend is Jesus." That's how I really want to be described. All the other things can pass away... beauty can fade, accomplishments can be forgotten – but loving God? That's forever. That's what's real. And that's what is important to me in the special person I am looking for.

     I had responded to a couple of other ads on the internet, always including how important Christ was in my life.  I hadn’t gotten responses to those e-mails.  Therefore, it was important to me to put Christ’s significance in my life right up front – if this guy was a real Christian, he would appreciate that.  If he wasn’t, and was only saying the “Christian” stuff for effect – then I didn’t really want to hear from him anyway!

     Some of the other women I had been conversing with on the net seemed to want to ignore God even though they has listed themselves as Christian when I had written them or when they had written me.  Donna’s boldness for Christ was impressive to me and

I screened the call and didn’t pick up the first time he called.  I was literally too nervous to talk to him!

a refreshing contrast.  Once we really started to converse via e-mail, I began to realize just how warm, special and wonderful Donna was.  It didn’t take too long before both of us began to feel the need to abandon the indirect communications of the Internet and begin to talk with each other on the phone.

     That was scary, to talk on the phone for the first time.  Would we like each other’s voices?  “The voice test” was the first in a series of tests we knew we had to pass if this were going to develop into anything more than just a friendship.  I admit – I screened the call and didn’t pick up the first time he called.  I was literally too nervous to talk to him!  Then, I called and left a message when I KNEW he would be gone, so once again I wouldn’t actually be talking to Beau in person.  That way, by the time we actually talked to each other, we knew what each other sounded like.

My first $400 phone bill was a good indication that not only were we spending waaaay too much time on the phone...

     While the Internet is definitely a great way to sort (read that as ‘weed’) through hundreds of thousands of potential suitors in seconds, it’s not a great way to really “date”.  Within a couple of weeks Donna and I had discovered a wonderful new friendship and we began talking extensively on the phone.  We even switched long-distance companies to get their 5¢ per minute rates.  My first $400 phone bill was a good indication that not only were we spending waaaay too much time on the phone, but that this woman I had found was indeed someone I could talk to and gel with for hours on end.  Something told me we really needed to meet.  This was going to be somewhat of a problem because she lived clear on the other side of the country.

     I had carried on long distance relationships before, and was relatively comfortable with talking on the phone for hours.  I didn’t know, however, how much of a “relationship” this actually was, us not having met and all.  I too knew that we needed to meet… and that prospect was both frightening and exhilarating!  Could Beau be The One?  I was scared he would be.  And I was just as scared - that he wouldn’t be.

     It was set.  I would be spending an entire week with Donna; a woman I had never really met in person.  Although, we had spend hours and hours on the phone.  I felt like I knew her in a very personal way just the same.  It was odd.  Would we pass the “smell test”?  What about the kiss test?  What if we just really repulsed each other in person?  And there were a hundred other questions to be answered by our first meeting also.  Little did I know that Donna and “Molly” had planned a secret surprise for me upon our first meeting.  The plane landed and as I entered the waiting area, I saw her for the first time.  A hundred thoughts ran through my mind at that moment.  Everything seemed almost a blur.  I walked up to her and hugged her for the very first time.

     Okay.  What he’s hinting at is what my dear friend Mauri Lang suggested when she found out I was meeting Beau at the airport.  “Why don’t you let me videotape your first meeting?” she asked.  The idea appealed to me.  It WAS a pivotal, momentous occasion – I was going to meet a man who might be “The One” – so I concurred.  We met at the airport, and figured out the logistics: where to stand, where he would be coming out from the gate, where Mauri could sit and not be noticed by Beau.  Mauri did a little interview with me – (one that would have been conveniently taped over had this whole thing not worked out) and then I waited.  And waited.  Scared out of my mind.  And then I saw him.  He was adorable.  Tall, handsome, a big smile with those adorable dimples.  He walked up to me, set down his computer case, and gave me a big hug...

     Meeting Donna was a pivotal point in my life even though I didn’t really know it at the time.  I could sense this feeling, like the Spirit moving within me, that seemed to be saying, “you realize you’re looking at your wife standing here.”  It quite honestly scared me.  The first week we spent together was wonderful, scary, filled with emotion and curiosity about each other.  When I left, it was soooo sad.  But I promised I’d be back and after a month or so I was back in Florida and I stayed for about three weeks to the amazement of my friends.  Little did I realize that my third visit to Florida to see Donna would be the last time I’d be bouncing between Washington and Florida.

     I couldn’t believe I had met someone so wonderful; someone who seemed to inherently know how to treat me.  This love was what I had always dreamed love

Although I was ecstatically happy I had found Prince Charming, the feeling was bittersweet  – I knew he would have to go back to Washington.

would be.  I was fast getting to the point that I couldn’t imagine being without him.  Like the old song goes, I had grown “Accustomed To His Face.”  Accustomed to having him nearby, accustomed to spending all of my free time being with him and all other times thinking about him. Although I was ecstatically happy I had found Prince Charming, the feeling was bittersweet  – I knew he would have to go back to Washington.  After all, we had tickets to go up there for the holidays. I knew that our holiday time would end with me flying back to Florida and him staying in Wenatchee. My heart was a little heavy -until he finally said to me these words: “Donna, I promise, you’ll never have to be alone again.”

     It’s true, I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her alone again.  At some point during my third trip to Florida (I would be in Florida for six weeks) I had reached the decision that Donna was indeed the woman I had been looking for all of my life – the woman of my dreams.  (I knew) that this charming, flamboyant, funny, sensitive, beautiful woman would be my wife.  It’s interesting that there is a much deeper story behind the scenes of this romantic one.  You see, some twelve years ago, I began praying that God would bring me a wife, the woman of my dreams.  Early into these prayer times, I felt the Spirit speak to me saying, “pray for your wife.”  It was a wonderful revelation knowing that God was preparin

It’s interesting that there is a much deeper story behind the scenes of this romantic one...

g someone for me (and I for them).  These prayers went on for about ten years.  I always knew God would answer my prayers and I made sure I always asked Him, “please bring my wife safely to me in your time, Lord”.  It wasn’t always easy and some days I’d be so frustrated.  During this time He seemed to reveal tiny clues about what my future wife would be like – I knew very little from these clues actually, only that she would be taller and have dark hair.  But these tiny revelations were enough for me.  After meeting Donna, there was no question that we were meant for each other.

     I never dreamed it would be so easy to be in love with someone.  Sure, we had misunderstandings – but they were infrequent and we were able to talk them out.  We didn’t get bored with each other – it didn’t matter if we were sitting at home, watching a movie, walking around the lake, or just sitting talking. The most comforting fact was that, even though we were different in many ways, we had prayed and prayed and prayed to God for guidance, throughout the course of this relationship.  If we were going to be spending the rest of our lives together, we wanted to make sure it was HIS will and not just our own.

     Many times we see things that God wants to give us and, for whatever reasons, we reel from His gifts, whether out of fear, shame, or even ignorance of the real bliss a gift from Him will bring us.  Somehow His gift doesn’t seem to fit into our life, our way of doing things; it seems it cramps our style.  Donna was such a gift

Many times we see things that God wants to give us and, for whatever reasons, we reel from His gifts...

.  Early in our relationship we discovered things about each other that seemed to separate us; Donna was raised in an Adventist home and is vegetarian and I was raised a Baptist omnivore.  I kept complaining to God early on that this couldn’t possibly be the woman for me because I really couldn’t see myself going to Church on Saturday and eating bean sprouts the rest of my life.  One day during a prayer time, God revealed to me (reminded me of) the story of the Israelites entering into the promised land which He had prepared and given to them.  They were afraid to enter the land because they saw “giants” already living there and it frightened them.  Well, we all know the story.  I came away from prayer with a new outlook on my future wife.  Worshiping on Saturday, the traditional Jewish Sabbath, doesn’t seem odd to me anymore at all and, while I doubt I’ll ever get used to something called “Tender Bits”, Donna is a great vegetarian cook.  We have this “perfect union”, which is a marriage of God, Donna and myself.

     Yes, there were differences that at first seemed gigantic.  But with all of my concerns about our religious beliefs, our differences in what we eat, and how we lived on opposite sides of the country, I didn’t initially factor in two things.   First, I didn’t know that our mighty and loving God had a plan long before I came into existence that involved two people- from opposite backgrounds and on opposite sides of the country - meeting through some strange twist of fate.  Second, I didn’t initially realize what an amazing, loving, giving man I was dealing with.  For every wall I saw as insurmountable, my Beau came through with a compromise, a new solution to each problem.  He left the place he had lived all his life, joined a new church family, and even learned to tolerate vegetarian pepperoni!  Through it all, he exhibited such loving grace and tenderness, that those walls I had seen as insurmountable disappeared.  The story had – and has – a happy ending.  All those dreams I had about my future husband pale in comparison to what my loving heavenly Father had in store for me, for Beau, for us.  We’re now a family, united together by the vows we made on December 20, and by the love God placed in our hearts.  We are happy… and we are blessed.