It feels good..

We went back to Elgin to visit some old friends yesterday, and I got to go visit one of my good friends, Amanda. We were best friends from church in Elgin. She's now married and has two precious little boys, Kaden and Malachi! I got to see them and play with the boys..lots of fun..they are sooo cute! It was great seeing Amanda and catching up on old times, but that wasn't the best part of our trip.

When we lived in Elgin, a very important event happened in my life. I fell in love for the very first time.

I was 14 years old and it was truly a "first love". Before this, I also had my very first crush on someone different, but that's a story for another time and place. The boy that I had fallen for was 4 years older than me, quarterback of the football team, went to my church, was so handsome and honestly just his smile would make me melt. We were friends in the beginning and had so much fun, just hanging out and spending time with each other. Later though, my feelings for him changed. I realized that I loved him, not like a little girl, but like a woman. I loved everything about him. The more I got to know him, the more I fell in love with him. The day that I found out that he liked me too, was a day that I'll never forget. I was blissfully happy..and innocent. I thought that he loved me, and we were going to get married and live happily ever after. However, God had different plans for both of us.

My family ended up moving the year he graduated high school. I remember when my parents told us the news, I went outside on our trampoline and cried so hard I thought my heart would break into a million pieces. Just the thought that I might not ever see him again tore me apart. I was so in love with this boy..and he didn't even know.

We moved to Lorena and I still thought of him daily. See, many people considered what we had or how I felt a small "crush" or something small and innocent. What they didn't know was that it was completely real for me. All during high school I never really dated and wasn't in a serious relationship..why? Because, no one I met measured up to him. I was pretty sure that no one ever would either.

It took me a long time, even until I was in college to realize that I was never going to marry this man. He did not love me, and God did not plan for us to be together. I knew in my heart that I had really loved that boy, as a teenage girl. However, I knew that when I fall in love again, with the man God designed to be my husband, it would be a forever kind of love with the man that I am going to spend the rest of my life with. I knew that my future husband would love me just like Christ loved the church, exactly how I deserved to be loved, wholly and completely.

Sometimes I ask myself..if I could..would I have changed my relationship with this boy or change something that I did or didn't do? The answer is always the same: no. I would not change anything for the world. He taught me so many things about myself, about what I wanted for a future mate, and things I might not have learned if it hadn't have been for that boy.

While I was visiting Amanda, she told me that over the summer, he got married.

Would you like to know my first, honest, emotion? Relief and happiness.

Relief that I didn't feel disappointed or dismayed at the news that my first love was now married, and it wasn't with me. Happiness that he had finally found someone that he could love and loved him back. He really does deserve the chance at happiness with the love of his life, and I am truly happy for him.

It sure feels good to know this...10 years later..oh and I never saw that boy again after we moved. I'm actually a little glad.

I am also happy for myself..because I know that someday I will find that same happiness, with the man that God designed for me, who's out there somewhere, who will make every dream I have dreamed come true, someone who is going to treat me like a princess and love me completely, and utterly, and incandescently..someone who wasn't the boy I first loved.