Real-life Romance: An Unexpected Meeting

If we all think about it, we expect to meet our future someone somewhere romantic. But more often than not, it happens in an ordinary place and time and we might miss it if we don't pay attention. Today, fellow author Candace West tells the story of how she met the love of her life.

I never expected to meet my future husband at a baptizing. And I certainly didn’t expect to meet him when I was the mature eleven-year-old looking down at his ten-year-old freckled face.

​Yet I did. Right under a cypress tree along the lakeside as people set out folding chairs while others tuned their guitars. Nearby, my mama snapped open a case and pulled out her accordion.

Sparkles like silver glitter spread across the blue-green water to the distant shoreline. At our feet, water lapped gently at our toes, so alluring, so off-limits on this special day.

Funny, I can’t remember the first thing I said to Aaron, nor the first thing he said to me. I do remember his ruddy head popping around the prickly tree trunk, his raspy voice wisecracking something now fuzzy in my memory. I do remember what I thought, however.

            What a pipsqueak!

Little did I dream we would be exchanging vows seventeen years later. Little did I know that when Aaron was fifteen, he prayed that he would marry me someday. When I look back over the journey that brought us from a lakeshore to an altar, I’m amazed at how God worked it out. Despite the detours, misunderstandings, and setbacks, the Lord guided us in His own time and way.

He knew the story of our romance long before we ever did.

Our story would take us through two deployments to Afghanistan. At home, worried and scared, I didn’t feel the romance of it. The sweetest thing I remember about our ordeal was how Aaron organized a Valentine’s scavenger hunt for me that lead to a memorable gift. Though he was thousands of miles away, he made his presence felt.
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Through the hard times, I still remember that ruddy little boy on the banks of Grand Lake, never dreaming he would do life by my side.

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Candace West was born in the Mississippi delta to a young minister and his wife. She grew up in small-town Arkansas and graduated from the University of Arkansas at Monticello. At twelve years old, she wrote her first story, “Following Prairie River.” In 2018, she published her debut novel Lane Steen. By weaving entertaining, hope-filled stories, Candace shares the Gospel and encourages her readers. She currently lives in Arkansas with her husband and their son along with two dogs and three bossy cats.

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www.candaceweststoryteller.com

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