He has made everything beautiful in its time

   I met Joel Gregory Reece a year and a half ago. I had ran into a friend on campus who invited me to a church he was interning at and the college Bible study at his dorm. Lately I had felt God was calling me elsewhere to a new church community and I needed a group of people my age to fellowship with, so I took him up on his offer and visited.  One Sunday afternoon, all the college kids were meeting up at the dorm to have lunch and get to know each other before we started meeting regularly for the summer. That was the same day I met Joel. I had seen him around, we had some mutual friends and played ultimate frisbee at the same place, but I had never really talked to him. Plus, he's quiet. I think he barely said a word the entire time we were eating lunch that day. He tries to play the mysterious role, and can honestly do it pretty well haha. Over the next few months, he actually started talking to me though and eventually picking at me. Joel didn't really like all the sweets that I brought each week, so I had to start cooking real food every week to take to Bible study. We learned a little about each other, like we both worked our butts off at jobs and we both come from big families. I had a HUGE crush on him, but I'd never admit that. Like I would come home each week and tell my mom about him. He would walk me out to my car every week and carry my stuff, but never ask me on a date. Once school started, I had in mind joining a sorority and I did. It was something I felt would be good for me and something I thought I really wanted. I became busy with it and tried to balance it with our Bible study, but eventually everyone became busy and our group got harder for everyone to meet up. Jon, Joel's brother, was leaving for YWAM Hawaii, so we met for dinner one night. I remember Jon telling me to keep hanging out with Joel while he was gone, which was something I didn't do. Those next few months, we went for walks at Swift-Cantrell, went to dinner, and eventually stopped talking for about six months.
   Fast forward to March of 2013, Jon comes back from his YWAM trip and I am in need of guy chaperones for youth trip to Dare2Share. So I text Jon and see if he and Joel want to help out. Jon says okay and tags along on this awesome trip to Chattanooga where we see God move in the lives of so many middle and high school students. The next month, Jon invites me to his birthday dinner, where I am the only one there not related to him. I sat between him and Joel at dinner, of which Joel talked my head off and I learned that he had enlisted in the Army. He would be leaving in August for OSUT. Afterwards, we all went to a movie and I wondered what I had been missing the last six months. From then on I started going over to the Reece household each week for Bible study. Each week, Jon paired Joel and I up for prayer. I got to know his family, he met my family, we went to frisbee together, took a trip to Charleston, and saw a lot of movies. Joel and I started to spend just about every day together.  I guess you could say "the rest is history," but I don't necessarily believe that, our story is still being written. All during this past summer, over and over again I was told "this isn't a date" and "I'm leaving soon," but I very much knew that he was the one. I'm crazy about him and have been from the beginning. Finally, on August 1st, we sat in his truck and talked for a long while, one of many talks we had this past summer, and established that we we're indeed dating. A week later, was the first time either of us said "I love you." Then, on August 19th he left for OSUT at Fort Benning, and the next three months we wrote over one hundred letters. With a blessing in disguise, Joel was snowed out of Texas after his graduation at the beginning of December, and he was able to stay home for four days. Then come home again last week for Christmas, where Joel surprised me with the best Christmas present ever. On December 22nd, after our first real date, he took me to the Marietta Square and proposed! 

Our first "real" date

How he asked me to marry him

  I believe our relationship is such a blessing from an awesome God. It may have taken us a while, but it wasn't our timing, it was God's. Like Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, "He has made everything beautiful in its time." I had to let go of my want to fit in with the crowd and God was working in Joel's heart too. While I wish I hadn't waited months to talk to him, I realize that it all worked out for our good. He has made our relationship beautiful, and He has so much more He wants to do.