What A Difference Seven Years Has Made

Roughly seven years ago today, I sat on the floor of my grandma and grandpa's garage and cried. I cried so hard that I couldn't breathe, tears coming hard and fast. I tried to wrap my mind around how the events of that day would change my life.



He drove away in his green truck, and I wondered if things would ever be the same for us again. What was God's plan? Would Peru change him? Would one of the five single girls on his team catch his attention? Would he listen to his parents? Or his brother? Or would he follow his own heart? I did not know the answer but I desperately wanted to know. I prayed that he wouldn't be just another guy in my life who walked out.



I had to get a grip and regain my composure, as anyone who knows me will tell you I cry easily. I wear my emotions on my sleeve, that is just who I am. Not so conveniently though, there were about fifty people inside my the house this was not the time to be having a breakdown. It was the weekend of my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary celebration. I needed to pull it together, to be happy for them, it was their weekend. Not to mention that I'm sure all my long lost relatives were wondering why that girl was crying on the garage floor.



My mother eventually came out, I remember thinking that she was going to yell at me for crying. I love my mother dearly but she hardly has a sympathetic bone in her whole body. She didn't yell, she helped me up off of the garage floor then she told me something that I held onto for the next eleven months.



" I know this hurts and it doesn't seem fair, but his parents are wrong about you, and he knows it. He'll be back and the two of you will spend a lifetime together. Someday there will be a house full of people waiting to celebrate your 50th wedding anniversary with you. That is the kind of guy he is."



We agreed then that I would visit Peru for Christmas, I collected myself and went inside.