Then it happened one day when I was set up on a blind date by one of my friends, I found true love. I didn’t know it at the time but this would become the woman I would want to spend the rest of my life with. She was perfect, smart, beautiful, funny, charming, and the best thing was she actually liked me back! Wow, I was walking on clouds again!

Wow, what an amazing feeling to find someone in this life that you truly love and cherish. I was finally feeling whole again. There was only one problem, no one ever taught me how to love someone. That sounds strange, I know, but if you never seen it growing up, never had anyone treat you that way, how would a person know how to love someone, or more than that, how to let someone love you. I thank the lord or God everyday for my soon-to-be wife. She is one strong lady to put up with me.

I started to go back to church again and was very happy. I was even in the Christmas play as Joseph. Life was good, but I still had a long road ahead of me that I was unaware of. We decided not to get married. At one point in life I would want to and she would be like no, I’m not ready. Then it would flip, she would want to get married and I would be like, no I’m not ready. We finally decided that someday we would both decide we were ready at the same time and then we would do it.

Like I said we were going to church and life was ok. We had three kids and thought everything was going good. Then one Sunday we went to church and they had a pastor from another church there filling in because the church was looking for a new pastor. We got there late; trying to get three young kids ready is no simple choir sometimes. Like I said we got there late and the only place left was the very front pew.

Well the pastor went into his sermon and had everyone in the congregation stand up. He then had everyone younger than twenty one sit down. Then everyone over forty-five sit down. He went on to have everyone that was married sit down. I think the next thing was everyone who didn’t have kids to sit down. He then went on with his sermon (we are still standing at this time) and he is talking about how living in sin is wrong and people should be married and things like that. Well all of a sudden my fiancé and I both felt like there were holes being burned into our backs. We start to look around and notice that we are the only ones still standing in the church! Well let me tell you we started to get some not so nice looks and glairs from the people behind us.

Now this is the church that I grew up in, I asked God to entire my life in this church. Every Sunday that we were there people would come up and talk to us both before and after church. We felt welcome and like we belonged. Well what we did not realize is that everyone assumed that we were married. You know that old saying about assume? That is the first time I truly understood its meaning. When the service was over and we walked out, no one said a word to us, nothing. We just got the "looks".

Now this is the church I brought my new family to. I told them how great it was. I even played Joseph in the Christmas play. Then that day took place and we were all alone in a church full of people. I have to say that I never felt so a banded in my life. We walked out to the car and just sat there for about five minutes in complete silence, the kids didn’t even make a noise. They were not old either our youngest was only about six months old, the middle one was about a year and a half and our oldest was about seven. I then looked at my fiancé and we both said at the same time "well that is the last time we come here again."

That left a really bitter taste in our mouths for church. We talked about finding a new church a lot but we never made the move to do so. We then spent the next five years away from the church again. I was really thinking that we might never end up going back. Then God worked a miracle in our lives for us. One of our close friends got out of a long term bad relationship and found a partner that made her super happy. They were together for a year and got married. Now you might be asking how this was a miracle for us and I will explain that for you in the next page.