Title Text

Meeting My Prince

Fairy Tales Do Come True

1965

I was in the audience with my sister-in-law and her two young daughters watching him on the stage. It was hard to believe that someone so handsome was my boyfriend. I really loved him and felt that God had brought us together.

When you are over 30 and single everyone is always trying to fix you up. These matchmaking activities are even more prevalent when you are a Christian and all the people in your church want you to find a "good Christian man".

My man on the stage, Sam, was incredibly handsome, very athletic, and creative. All the butterflies in the stomach kind of feelings were there. I can remember the first date with Sam. He took me to a play where he had some friends acting in the play. He was dressed in a suit and I had bought something special to wear. He showed me off to his friends and honestly for the first time in my life I felt beautiful.

I spent the holidays being with he and his family, playing board games, talking, eating, and laughing. His family easily accepted me and were thrilled that Sam had finally found someone! His family and our church friends saw the wonderful possibilities for us in the future, and so I dared to dream that Sam was the one for me. Finally I would have the ever-allusive loving relationship that seemed out of my reach.

Well, that's the fairy tale isn't it, for most women? To be swept off their feet by their Prince Charming? To be looked at with eyes of love and thought  the most beautiful woman in the world to him. I look in my husband's eyes now and see that love every day. We will be celebrating 26 years wonderful years together this July. I am more in love with him now than when I married him. I am so blessed!

My fairy tale ending, however, was not with Sam.

What I left out from my story was the pain.

Sam's pain.

He had lost his mom at 19 and had never quite recovered. Her death brought up the pain he had stuffed down year after year. A pain that he later found out through therapy was the result of abuse he suffered as a small child at the hands of his mother.

Though all I said to you was true about our first date and wonderful times spent together -- I saw glimpses of his pain from time to time in how he would treat me. One minute smiling, the next angry. One minute baring his soul to me and the next - deep inside himself where no one was allowed in.

I remember driving home after one holiday party with tears streaming down my face because I couldn't understand his ruthlessness in having to win the board game at all costs. Who was this guy? This handsome, creative guy?

I had a close friend at my church with whom I shared the ups and downs of my relationship with Sam. Eventually my friend said, "It's not supposed to be like this Marcia. You shouldn't be sad so much of the time."

Once I moved from Ohio to my first teaching job at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, and I was away from Sam he began to realize his mental issues were just too hard to overcome. He couldn't let me in as anything more than a friend.

I can still remember the day when I was back visiting my old church in Ohio. I sat in my seat with tears streaming down my face - telling God that if he wanted me to be single, I would do it. It made me sad to give up that dream, but I knew I could do great things for God.

Then just before I left church that day, a couple in the church came up to me and said, "Marcia, we have someone we'd like you to meet. Can he call you?" With the wetness from my tears still fresh on my face I said, "yes."

And then I met him! The one I could talk to about anything, that had love in his eyes for me, and thought me the most beautiful woman in the world. The one who had no deep-seated issues to work through, the one who showed me just how GOOD a true love could be!