As I was about to post a
FLASHBACK about our 12th anniversary, I decided it might be fun to document how Kris and I met. To make it even more fun - my mom recently passed her extra scanner/printer combo down to me and it offered the opportunity to bust out some old pictures of our "early days"! Most of you who follow our blog are well aware of this story, but for the record...
My life was at a turning point leading up to the summer of 1995. I was finishing up my sophomore year of college and trying to decide what was next. Due to God re-directing me and some family issues, I knew He had me at a pivotal point. The decisions He was calling me to make were life altering. I had to decide - was I willing to follow Him
(trust the unknown, abandon all that I thought was safe, normal, right) or was I just going to remain comfortable
(I knew He had brought me to this Christian college and given me great friends, why mess up a good thing)? I often wondered what in the world I was doing and what in the world people would be thinking. Why was I leaving something so good for something so unsure?
I had spent the last few months agonizing over the decision. I fought feelings of letting people down, leaving my friends, wondering if I was wrong, and even entertaining whether or not it really was God calling me. But, in the innermost part of my soul, I knew. I had to follow. It may not be easy. It may not feel good. It may not seem better. But He said do it...that alone was enough.
Before long I found myself in a staff meeting having orientation for a summer that would change my life. I was hired to work as a lifeguard at the Gulf Coast camp where I visited each summer of my junior high years. I moved in the staff house knowing little more than one other staffer and how to "reach, throw, don't go"!
A few weeks into my summer I was headed to the Snack Shack and there...about 30 yards away...walking along the sidewalk on his way to the auditorium...was Kris.
I felt it from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
It stopped me in my tracks.
It was the guy.
God was answering a longtime prayer of mine...
that I would know.
Not
know. But
KNOW.
I had been praying earnestly for the last few years that He would show me who He had for me, and that He would show me in a way that I would
know without a shadow of doubt.
He had answered.That distance away I did not
know this guy's name, I did not
know this guy's heart, I did not
know this guy. But, I did
know God is faithful.
It was a little while before we actually met.
And to say my knees were shaking would be an understatement!!! After that we would occasionally run into each other and share a few words, but honestly, I felt like I could not catch my breath when he was around :)
(Kris and I at the GBA Luau, a few weeks after we met - June 1995)
The summer rocked on and we both fulfilled our duties at camp. We found ourselves going about our lives. We returned to school
(before meeting Kris I had already decided to transfer to Southern Miss - not knowing it was where he had spent his entire life) and did the college thing. He was a BSU intern and I was a student. We became friends but it would be a
long two years before that changed!
We both served as
Fuge camp staffers the
summer of 1997 (at different campuses) and that is when our friendship deepened. We spent the summer writing letters and occasionally talking on the phone. We got to know each other and when we returned to school our relationship was different in a really, really good way :) As they say...the rest was history!
(Kris and I the weekend I took him home to meet my mom - November 1997)
*it was on this trip home that I shared with Kris God's revelation to me the moment I saw him the summer or 1995*
It was not long before our conversations started hinting of the future. He was considering seminary in Texas and we were looking at apartments online
(s-l-o-w-l-y, as it was the dial-up age!), I was looking into possible job opportunities, and marriage was becoming a real possibility!
(at a friend's apartment - December 1997)We spent more and more time together.
(hiking the Natchez Trace trails - January 1998)We met each others families and started making plans - that included each other.
(celebrating Christmas at my grandmother's - December 1997)
I finished classes that December and completed my internship the following May with a ring on my finger.
Not just any old ring...a ring from Kris!
(at my apartment before graduation - December 1997)"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory..."
Ephesians 3:20-21 NAS
(Bankston Hays, Wes, and Ann Elise)
