This is dedicated to the one I love...

In the spirit of Valentine's Day (which I'm not all that big on to be honest) I've decided to dedicate a blog to my husband, co-creator, and best friend Josh. He gets mentioned in my blogs many times, but mostly it is in reference to some crazy way that he has had to bail me out of some unbelievable situtation. So, I thought I would share how much I love this person who has apparently signed some kind of contract in which he will receive a million dollars for every year he puts up with me, or something like that. I cannot figure out another reason why he has put up with me this long.

In a time when so many people have lost all hope in true and lasting love, I am so thankful to God for my love story. I know that He has written it because it has been too well orchestrated for Josh or myself who both struggle a bit in the planning area. :) Apparently it started in fifth grade when I was much more interested in Barbie's than boys, but Josh swears he had a crush on me then. He even told me that he didn't ask me to sign his class T-shirt because he was too nervous to talk to me. For our one year anniversary I got one of those T-shirts from my 5th grade teacher and signed it Emily Fidler. :)

We didn't really have any contact again until 10th grade. We had chemistry together. The class I mean. Ha! Josh was so quiet and never talked. I was totally obsessed with some other boy. Josh still tells me that he knew since 5th grade we were supposed to be together and so I really wish he would have clued me in on that revelation and saved my needless obsessing and rejection by other people! The only thing I really remember was being in a group together and trying to draw a line and I couldn't even draw it straight with a ruler. Josh had to do it. He did it straight without the ruler.

You know how you always hear the stories of people running into each other's arms on the beach or something really romantic about how they first knew they liked each other? Well, let me tell you what I remember about our night. We were at McDonald's. It was after a football game and it was freezing. I had on about 10 layers of clothes and I really needed to go to the bathroom. Josh says we started talking about our history class and he just fell in love with me. Go figure. So much for all of the magazine articles about hair, makeup and flirting. I had just spent four hours at a football game, my hair was falling out of the mandatory french braid I had to wear as part of the dance team, and like I said I had on ten layers of sweats that didn't match. To top it off I chose the fascinating subject of history class to discuss! I was obviously not anticipating finding love at McDonald's that night. To this day the only thing I remember is how much I needed to go to the bathroom.

Well, it must be meant to be if it starts out that romantic right? Ha! At that time I had recently had my heartbroken and I was not in the mood to do it all over again. So, I did not make things easy for Josh. I'm very glad he was persistent! You can ask anybody who knew us then, we were JUST FRIENDS! It became my mantra. When I finally agreed to go to our junior prom with him I made it very clear that we were going as JUST FRIENDS!!!

I kept that up for a few more months, but the truth was that the first time we danced together I knew he was the one. I felt safe with him. I guess that doesn't sound very romantic, but my all time favorite verse is Proverbs 4:23. It says "Above all else guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life." I've always taken guarding my heart very seriously and somehow I just knew with Josh that it would be safe.

I know I drove him crazy with all of the "friend" stuff and a whole list of rules I had. Yes, I had rules. But for some reason he decided I was worth all of it, and that was exactly what I needed. Someone who thought I was worth fighting for. And waiting for. I felt God leading me to a college 6 hours away from home and even though I knew I was supposed to marry Josh, I also knew that I was supposed to go to that school. It was hard and Josh and I could probably have bought a house with what we spent on phone cards, but he waited.

I'm not sure why I felt the need to write this. I guess just thinking about Valentine's Day. Things have a way of becoming so commercialized to the point that they start to lose their meaning. I feel sad for our kids growing up in a time when they are taught to be cynical about love and to just accept that relationships never last and everybody ends up miserable in the end. I don't believe it!

Our first Valentine's Day together, I really got into the whole experience. I cooked Josh's favorite food (okay, it wasn't really his favorite, but it was the only thing I knew how to make) and I set the table with the fancy dinnerware (that was before we had moved 50 times and had 3 kids to break it all) and I even lit a fire in the fireplace. Well...those were the days Josh was working LONG hours as a breadman and I had not yet learned to add 2 hours onto whatever time he said he would be home. Anyway, in the process of preserving the food and the candlelight I managed to nearly burn our apartment down. I had put a candlebra with 6 or 7 candles on the floor in front of the fireplace. Yea, not a good idea. It took me a while to figure out that all of the candles were completely melting all over the tile. I mean COMPLETELY melting. I picked wax off of that floor for weeks.

Not too long after that a country song came out called "I Melt". Josh and I couldn't help but crack up everytime we heard it and had to make up our own version "Everything melts!"
I've been thinking about that Valentine's Day and that song and I realize that Josh still makes me melt. It would take days and weeks and months and years to write about all of the things, good and bad, that we have experienced since that first Valentine's Day, but the truth is that we love each other more now than we did when we had fancy plates to eat on. :)

I hope that all of you had an awesome Valentine's Day and if you are still waiting for that special someone, don't lose heart! Just guard your heart and be willing to wait. The best things are always worth waiting for!!