My Love Story: Erica's Story

 We all have one. A story that tells how we  began our happily ever after. Our story may have twist, turns, laughs, tears, and all the in between, but they are ours. I have asked a few bloggers and readers to share their stories.

 Here are their words....their love stories.

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I met my husband in May of 2009. I was a year into a long, ugly divorce. I was sad, hurt, angry and really a mess.

One Sunday at church, my pastor mentioned a retreat that he thought I should look into attending. I didn't want to, I enjoyed wallowing in my self pity and anger. He mentioned it a few more times and offered me a scholarship. I finally decided that God was trying awful hard to get me to this retreat, so I went.

I met some people in the church parking lot at 5am. We jumped in the van and drove away. We met up with some more friends in a nearby town. I don't remember much except, I didn't know anyone. Two people hugged me and it was raining. My husband says we met in that Starbuck's parking lot. He got into the van and I got into a car.

We picked up a few more people and made our way to St. Louis to meet the rest of our caravan.

We caravaned across the country to Westcliffe, Colorado. This is where I remember meeting him.

Once at the hotel we were divided up into groups. Family groups would be a safe place for me that week. As we learned and discussed things like: Every Revolution begins with one step. We talked about what faithfulness looks like: Burden, Duty or expression of love. We have inherent value no matter what we have been through. Everyone has their own baggage: Its all different, yet mostly the same. Faith means taking one step beyond the evidence. Self control works best when we turn control over to God. And The crucifixion teaches us that sometimes the losers look like winners and the winners look like losers.

My husband was in my family group. During the first morning's discussion where we talked about loneliness, I broke down into tears. He told me that he had been through a divorce and if I needed someone to talk to he would listen.

After that we had a few hours of free time. Several of my new friends were going hiking up the old ski lift behind our hotel. We decided to join. I am a terrible hiker. I'm better now than I was then. We didn't make it far, I was out of breath, I'm blaming altitude. We sat on the side of that ski slope and talked. I opened up about my hurt, my sadness and my dreams. He was the easiest person to talk to. I was so scared to tell him exactly why I was getting a divorce. I was terrified he would default to team man. He didn't. We spent the next six days visiting wolves, worshiping God, taking walks and getting to know one another.

When we got home from that retreat, it took him exactly two days to come and visit me. We lived 300 miles apart. He showed up at my house and said "I don't want to be your friend. I want to be your boyfriend." He had me at that. The rest is history! You can read more about our story and our move to Alaska on my blog We Three Crabs.

XO Erica