How I knew

Last Tuesday night Felipe and I were just sitting in the car, talking and catching up on each other's days. We started talking and somehow marriage came up (not so rare these days) and we started swapping stories of when we realized/decided we wanted to marry the other person. He had been praying about it off and on for a while now, but last August/September when he was praying about it he realized that getting married would be a good thing. It just made sense to him. It seemed like the best decision to be making. Felipe is very logical and analytical. When the Spirit speaks to him it appeals to logic and reason. I, however, am a bit more emotional... But I told him when I realized I could marry him, which I hadn't told him before. Not because it was a big secret or anything, it was just so long ago and never really came up.

But last year I was seriously considering doing an internship with the department of defense. I would have been sent to a military base in Europe, travel and housing paid for, and given a monthly stipend. I learned about this program even before we started dating and had been in the process of applying when we met. After we started dating the idea went on the back burner for a while, but eventually I remembered it and became interested again. I wasn't sure if things were going anywhere with Felipe so I started seriously considering the program. I applied and started praying about the decision. Eventually I had an interview with them and was called back for a second and was starting to get a little stressed out with deciding if I should leave on this program the next semester or stay with Felipe and see what happened. If I wasn't dating him I would have most likely gone.

November 6, 2009 (I remember the date because it was the night of his friend, Tavi's, birthday party and I was super nervous to go play soccer with everybody) I knelt down to pray about going on this internship, seeing if it was the right thing for me to pursue just then, and as soon as I started praying my mind went completely blank. I couldn't remember my reason for kneeling down at all and started feeling silly, just kneeling there with nothing to say to God. After a minute or two I still couldn't think what I had wanted to say, but then Felipe came into my mind, and I started thinking if I could marry him. I know this sounds really cheesy, but it's what happened. I decided to start praying about him, and it just felt right. I could see myself marrying him and it felt like a great idea. I couldn't remember my original reason for praying until after I had ended my prayer. It reminded me of the scripture where we're told if it's not right He will cause a stupor of thought. Anyways, that was exactly a year ago and it took months and months of getting Felipe on board with the idea, but I wouldn't marry him if I wasn't certain he had received his own form of confirmation too.