My name is Aurora. I’m 45. Ken is 50. We were married on May 1, a year to the day after our first in-person meeting. We don’t necessarily fit the Boundless demographic, but we’re hoping our story is an encouragement to others who find wisdom for the single journey here.
This a second marriage for both of us. We were both married for the first time nearly 20 years ago. My marriage failed not long after it started, a victim of what happens when two people try to do marriage without the benefit of Jesus. Ken’s marriage failed when his wife left him, leaving him to raise their twin boys alone. Both situations drove us to the feet of Jesus, begging for salvation and for help. While praying without ceasing didn’t save our marriages, we each received more help and healing than we ever could have imagined. We embarked on lives as singles, me as a single woman trying to understand the Lord and His work in my life and Ken as a single dad, relying on God to provide and help him care for his sons.
Over the years, I struggled with trying to understand why the Lord left me unmarried. I followed the pattern of so many, mistaking waiting on the Lord with sitting and doing nothing to “help” myself get married. I prayed alone, sharing my desire for marriage with only one person and talking to her only when the desire for it became so painful that I needed to release it with lots of tears. I’d let it all out, feel better because I’d expressed some of my hurt and then go back to waiting/sitting.
In 2009, I read Candice Watters’ book Get Married and was challenged by what she shared. I realized there were things I needed to be doing to put myself in a position for God to bless me with the gift of marriage. A big part of what I needed to do was change my attitude and invite others into the process — for prayer and for encouragement. I worked on having an attitude of expectancy when I prayed for marriage, and I worked on adjusting my motive for wanting to be married. And I invited a group of other single women to meet regularly to pray for this gift that we all wanted. All of this and more helped bring me into a deeper intimacy with the Lord. I loved the entire process of actively waiting for God to move in this area of my life!
That same year, my cousin who is also my best friend and the best spiritual training partner you could ever hope to have, challenged me to try something I said I would never try: online dating. I never really thought it was for me, and truth be told, I didn’t because of my pride. I just didn’t feel God would answer my prayer like that. I was above needing to go online to meet someone. So I resisted until I just couldn’t hear my cousin say another word about it. “Just try it,” she would say. “What’s the harm in trying it?” she would prod. So I put my profile on an online dating site and planned to leave it there just to prove that it wouldn’t work for me. I did not, would not actively participate in the process.
Ken, at the same time, was being encouraged by his niece, who just happens to work for the same online dating site, to put a profile up to see if he might meet someone. Like me, he was skeptical, resistant and slow to move. He wasn’t necessarily looking to meet someone for marriage, but he was interested in meeting a Christian woman to see what might develop. He just didn’t think it would happen online. He was also pretty certain the Lord would not work through digital means. But finally he relented, put up a profile and began to go through the process of communicating with his matches. One of those matches was me.
A challenging set of life circumstances (the deaths of my beloved grandmother and a dear friend very close together) found me on the dating site longer than I had planned. When Ken contacted me, I decided to respond. We used all of the channels of communication the site provided, and once we were comfortable with one another and what we had learned about the other’s walk with the Lord, we moved to communicating by email. For two and half months, we drilled each other with all sorts of hard questions related to dating and relationships, everything from kissing to submission. I was looking for deal-breakers, anything that would eliminate Ken from being considered as marriage material. He was looking for anything that would prove I was less than the Christian woman he was hoping to meet.
We spent two and a half months emailing each other. We didn’t meet even though we lived only 30 miles apart. At the end of April 2010, we finally exchanged phone numbers and spoke on the phone. Our first date was May 1. We started pre-engagement counseling (we highly recommend this) on July 4. Ken proposed on Oct. 23, and we were married this past spring in front of family and friends who had been faithfully praying for years that God would send a spouse to each of us. We were blessed to share our first kiss at the marriage altar! The day celebrated not only an answer to prayer, but it was the completion of learning the lesson that sometimes God will answer your prayer not only in a way you don’t expect, but sometimes in a way you really don’t want!
Ken and I are having a lovely time these days, enjoying each other and seeking the Lord for how He will use us as a couple to help build His kingdom. We are still in awe of how God has blessed us. We are thankful and humbled by His goodness toward us.
For me, Boundless was always a source of thoughtful dialogue about singleness, waiting, dating and marriage. Blog posts and the spirited discussions in the comments encouraged me, challenged me and helped me be steadfast in my approach to dating and marriage despite unhealthy counsel to the contrary from both inside and outside the church. Boundless helped keep me hopeful, trusting in the Lord and encouraged. Boundless Team, know that your ministry blesses those beyond those you planned on touching for the Lord. Ken and I are grateful for what you do!
