Ours is a true God story. After being married for 18 years and having three kids, I went through the darkest time in my life. Although the marriage had been falling apart for a long time, it was not a good situation and we got divorced. After a few months, a co-worker and I were talking about our lives. He told me about ChristianMingle and after work, I went home and got online to check it out. God’s first blessing: that this co-worker and I seldom work together, so it just so happened that we did that day and ChristianMingle was introduced to me for the first time!
First, I signed up for free and posted my profile. I made several friendly contacts but nothing serious. Then after about a month I met a very attractive woman with a profile who I really liked. I sent lots of smiles and pre-selected messages. I wanted to get to know her better, so I paid for a subscription. God’s second blessing: it just so happened that we both were only on for a short time but it was at the same time!
We began with a friendship and shared past failed relationship experiences along with who we were and our life stories. It seemed like it was going to be nothing more than just a friendship. There were too many obstacles to overcome. We lived five hours apart, we were 11 years apart in age and, I was divorced with three teenagers. It was not at all what she was looking for but she called her mom and told her to pray for me. God’s third blessing: what is impossible with men is possible with God. She had no interest in moving away from her job and friends. She also had offers to go out with other men five to seven years older but thought they were too old for her.
We first met on the site in May of 2008. After becoming good friends through ChristianMingle and exchanging phone numbers, we began having stronger feelings for each other. Because we were five hours apart, we would spend hours and hours every night on the phone getting to know each other better. Then in July of 2008, we started doing devotions together at the same time every night, 10pm. Also in July, we met for the first time in person. I was passing through her town on the way home from vacation. We both began to wonder if something more could become of our relationship but we didn’t want to waste each other’s time and energy into a relationship that wouldn’t last. Soon, we began searching and praying for God’s will to be shown to us. We even stopped all communication but kept praying and doing our devotions at our regular time.
After a week, we contacted each other and found there was no clear answer, so we decided to stop pursuing the relationship any further. Contact would be minimal. It would be too hard to keep building a relationship that would have to eventually end. God’s fourth blessing: after taking our focus off each other and truly putting God first, we got our answer. After a month or so through personal revelations from God, we knew that God had a plan for us as a couple. We felt so strongly about God’s will for us that Kristin was willing to step out in faith, quit her job, and move five hours away from her closest friends and eight hours away from her parents before I proposed. The plan was for her to move to where I was living and get a place to live and look for a new job. Little did she know that I had already contacted her parents to get their permission to marry her. Although I didn’t know it at the time, the day that I made that call was the same day, she told her boss that she would be leaving in a couple of months.
On December 31, 2008, at one of her best friend’s New Year’s Eve party while playing a game like “The Newlyweds”, I proposed. I had coordinated with her friends to do the game and also had arranged to have her parents surprise her by being there when it happened.
We first met through ChristianMingle in May of 2008, then got engaged in December of 2008, and were married in June of 2009. We just recently celebrated our second anniversary and to make our story even better, God has blessed us with a healthy baby boy on June 9th. God has blessed us many times and is still blessing us today and it all started with ChristianMingle!