everlasting love

dear blog readers,

it is with great joy and a swarm of butterflies in my stomach that i announce to you that JesusFish is engaged!

crazy!

i mean,
crazy!

Yale asked me to marry him on Friday night and i said YES!

and hooooney and Roommate and lots of chicago friends gathered at a surprise engagement party to celebrate our happy news, and it was so much fun. even though that meant that half of my friends knew i was going to get engaged this weekend and i didn't... but, you know, i'm not complaining :)

many of you have already heard the story, but i'll write it again anyway because writing makes me happy.

the weekend was slated to be a long one at best, and a brutal one at worst. my siblings and i (and our respective spouses/boyfriend) had committed to spending the whole weekend cleaning out mom's house and getting it ready for the winter. sorting 37 years worth of stuff into Keep, Trash, Donate, Recycle piles all weekend long. making a list of work to be done, and divvying up the tasks so that we all had a reasonable work load. that was my plan. that was what i had steeled myself up for for the weekend.

the only thing that Yale had asked to do this weekend was to go to the special Taize service at 4th Presbyterian Church on michigan ave. we've been talking about going to one of their special monthly services, but had never gotten around to it. he wanted to be sure we could go this month, to give thanks and pray together the day after thanksgiving because he knew it would be a busy and difficult holiday for me this year. so i agreed.

we left rockford and had to scramble to make it to the 7:30 service. we parked the car and ran up to the huge heavy wood doors of the church and gave an enthusiastic tug but it didn't budge. a quick glance around confirmed Yale's growing panic: no lights, no people. no Taize mass that night. the look on his face was one of genuine sadness twinged with confusion. i heaved a sigh and tried to console him with the alternative plan of movie watching on the couch and some wine, but he looked so crestfallen i just stood there and asked him what he would like to do. he suggested a walk in the church courtyard, which was all decked out in greenery and lights and decorations. so we walked into the cityscape seclusion of a dark and quiet space, and he admitted (after commenting on how beautiful the city is and how nice to be able to see the skyscrapers and the church at the same time) that he was disappointed about the service because he had hoped he could ask me a question afterwards, and he wanted to ask me this particular question in a church....

and suddenly i was shaking and he was down on one knee.

for a nanosecond.

then a group of about 10 tourists wandered into the courtyard snapping pictures and talking and he shot back up to his feet like a rocket, without actually asking any question....

and i burst into giggles and said "yes????? were you going to ask me something????" and he said "I DID!" "no, love, you DIDN'T!" and he fumbled and giggled and realized that in his one-knee lunge and flustered plans going awry, he hadn't actually ASKED ME TO MARRY HIM. and he recovered himself, and dug into his pocket and took out the ring and gave it to me and asked me if i would marry him and be his wife. and i said yes. and put on mom's diamond, reset into a sparkling new setting, and burst into hot happy tears.

and we giggled about the whole thing, and hugged, and kissed and looked at the beautiful city and then sat down next to the fountain to pray together.

then he told me that he had another surprise: all my chicago friends were waiting at a surprise engagement party at Hooney's house, but they weren't expecting us for another hour, so we would have to entertain ourselves for a bit before we went over. so, all my friends knew, so i didn't have many excited phone calls to make, so we got to spend an hour walking up and down michigan ave admiring the lights and being excited and stupid together. and calling each other "fiance" in silly voices. so yeah, it was probably good that we had time to get that out of our system.

but we did go into a starbucks for a celebratory chichi drink, and i was so excited that when the barista asked me what i wanted to drink, i almost shouted: "I want a peppermint mocha with WHIPPED CREAM! because I just got engaged and I'm celebrating so I can get whatever I want so I'm going to get WHIPPED CREAM!" and showed him my ring with a huge grin. yale was laughing so hard i think he snorted. but he liked it. the baristas all congratulated us, and some of the patrons as well.

and then we almost skipped back to the car and went to the engagement party and toasted with champagne and hugged and laughed and ate cupcakes with our initials on them and took pictures and told the story and were generally ridiculous for several hours.

it's good. it is so good. i am so blessed.

to have Yale in my life. to have a fiance who wanted so strongly to include the Lord in our engagement story that he wanted to ask me to marry him in church. to be able to wear my mom's diamond and celebrate my parent's love for each other and their commitment to each other for the rest of my life too.

so.
blessed.

and BONUS: now i can legitimately start trying on wedding dresses! hooray! and just in case you're wondering, my plan is, in fact, to dance our first dance to U2's cover of "everlasting love", and it has been the plan since i was about 19.... so we'll see what Yale thinks of that plan.

now things really get interesting!