“What is special about this girl that I keep on being drawn in to” was the question he raised to himself after he tried to call her for the third time in one day.

“Is she ignoring my call or is she not interested to talk to me?” He didn’t like the fact that he was on the other side of the equation, the one who was being ignored.

He said to himself, “Whatever! She’s a girl; she will call me back. Let me ignore her.” But the truth of the matter was he noticed something in her that he hasn’t seen in any other girl. And he knew that she wouldn’t call him if he didn’t keep trying.

“Wow, she is very different,” he said to himself. And he said, “Maybe I’m just exaggerating things. She is not that different from other girls.” But still there was that nagging curiosity which made him subject to stare at his phone for a long period of time, waiting to see her name to pop up as her call comes in.

From his past experiences with girls, with no exception, he never asked a girl out. He or the girl calls him and the rest is history. He’s never found himself staring at his phone waiting for a girl to call him. Never! He’s never done that before.

He has been a born again Christian for a while. When he first heard the Gospel, he understood it and he gave his life to Christ to follow Him for the rest of his life. But after he received most of God’s blessings in his life, including his degree, good job and comfortable life, he drifted away from God. He lost the reason to seek Him.

He didn’t stop going to church but when it comes to getting involved in a ministry like choir or something, like some of his friends, he somehow resisted. He didn’t sweat on the idea of “being fanatic” with his faith (as he described it). He thought some people have taken Christianity to the extreme. He’s always been listening to a spiritual radio station and Gospel songs. But that was it for him as far as Christianity is concerned.

He didn’t do alcohol, or drug but when it comes to dating and everything related to that part of his life, he thought that God didn’t care or it was something he needed to handle by himself without any interference from God or anybody.

“After all,” he asserted himself about his stand regarding his sexuality, “After all, it is God who gave me sexual desires and it is my responsibility to handle it.”

He used to have a little “stone-headed” personality. So, he pretty much kept his life to himself and didn’t want to be bothered by anyone regarding his life.

One of his friends approached him once about his personal lifestyle after he saw him with a girl late at night. His friend said to him, “What are you doing at that late night with a girl? I saw you when I came back from a prayer meeting? I hope you’re not putting yourself in a dangerous situation.”

With a serious look, he said to him, “You know what; I don’t appreciate people sticking their noses in my personal life. If you think I need a prayer, go ahead and pray for me. I guess that is what a good Christian does.”

He used to be very independent person who didn’t want to be seen seeking anything from any human being.

He was in a long-term relationship with a girl who was also going to the same church he used to go to before she moved to another state. She or he drives once in a week or two and see each other for a weekend. But after he forced her to do abortion twice and didn’t seem to be interested to marry her, she simply disappeared and he didn’t really care. He moved on to the next girl.

After that he dated some girls just for his sexual fantasies. He never thought of marrying any one of those girls. “Getting married” was not among his long or short term plans even though he turned 30 this year.

One morning, from nowhere, lying on his bed, he began thinking of marrying one girl he met at his church. He was very surprised to think about marriage, and what surprised him the most was the fact that he thought about getting married with this particular girl he hardly knew. That was like for the first time in his lifetime to think about wedding.

Without thinking what he was about to say to her, he dialed her number. She didn’t answer her phone. He called her back again. No answer. He stared at his phone for a long time thinking that she would return his call because that was the usual response he’s been receiving from other girls. But this time, it was different. After he waited for her to call him back, he called her for the third time and left a message saying that he wanted to ask her something.

He laughed at himself for being that much nervous to leave a voice message to a girl. He never had that experience before. “This is weird,” he said to himself.

After what felt like seven hours, she returned his call after a couple of hours. She talked to him as if she knew him for a long time. He liked her easy-going attitude. They talked about the weather, the upcoming conference in their church; and she asked him what he wanted to ask her.

His tongue got twisted. “What?” He said to himself, “Why am I reacting this way?” He acted as if he forgot about it and simply said, “Uhh… You know what, I was wondering if we can meet up for a cup of tea or coffee. Today is Saturday and I was wondering if you have time today.”

Before she answered to him, there was a pause which felt for him like waiting for a death sentence hearing. Then with some sort of hesitation in her voice, she said, “I have other plan today but I will be in the church tomorrow. We will chat there after the service.”

And she didn’t even wait for his reply and she continued saying, “I have to run now. Hey, nice talking to you. See you tomorrow.”

He said, “Sure, yeah, okay, I will see you tomorrow.” And boom!

He looked at his phone and said, “Something is not right here.” He smiled at the phone as if to say, “I will show you what I’m made of.”

He is a very handsome and attractive man. Every girl dies to have him as a boyfriend and/or a husband. No girl had ever turned him down, EVER!

He didn’t want to go out that Saturday. He pretty much lost interest to do anything but see this girl. After he took shower and trying to fix breakfast for himself, he blurted out these words: “Who does she think she is?”

He thought he was exaggerating things and said to himself, “I’m taking her “No’s” out of proportion here. She may have other plans or commitments.”

But pretty much the whole day, he was thinking about her.

The next day, he saw her in church. He waved at her and went to say hello. She talked to him and other guys who were with him. Then he courageously said to her, “Let’s have lunch today, you and I, alone. What do you say?”

Giggling and looking at his eyes, she said, “You look like you are about to propose to me. What has gotten in to you?”

He wanted to shoot his head off. He realized that he couldn’t keep his cool. He tried to joke back saying, “You never know. So what do you say?”

She said, “I wish but I have to visit my sick aunt today. I have appointment with my sister to visit her together, maybe some other time. Thank you for the invitation though.”

“What about over the week?”

She gave him a kind of look that says, “Are you okay?” And he immediately said, “That is fine. You just tell me when I can take you out for lunch or something. Or you can invite me.”

And with an inquisitive look, she said, “Yeah, sure, that is better. Catch you later.”

The guy lost interest in life. Totally! There were two girls who were throwing themselves all over him, asking him to invite them. He pulled all his patience together and said to them, “I’ve to go somewhere important now. I will see you guys another time.”

Under his lips he said, “You will never see me again.”

He just got interested to know one girl and that was the girl who turned him down twice. He called her on Monday and she asked him why he called her.

He said, “I wanted to say hi. Is it a crime?”

She said, “No, but you seem you have nothing to do in life other than calling me. We were together yesterday, weren’t we?” And she laughed. She said she would see him in church next week.

He hung up the phone saying, “She is out of touch with this life and I want to know why.”

So he began to look for people who might have known her or have any information about her. He was scared to hear something like, “She has a boyfriend she is planning to marry” or something like that.

He cut all his contacts with other girls. He stopped replying back to their text messages or phone calls. From all the girls he ignored, though, one girl didn’t seem to get it. He ignored all her calls but she kept on texting. He had a relationship with her before but he is not interested in her anymore. So, he called her up and said to her, “Please don’t call or text me. Move on with your life. We’re through.”

Now he was free to do his project to know the one girl who seemed to steal his heart, soul and mind.

The only information he seemed to pull together about her was only one and that is; “She is a serious Christian.”

Well, after three weeks of hard work on his part, she said okay for a cup of coffee. He was as nervous as he could be. They sat down with a cup of coffee and a pastry he ordered. He already took a bite when she said, “Do you mind if we pray?” He wanted to spit it out but he knew he wouldn’t do such a thing. So, he at least stopped chewing and bowed down and she said, “Why don’t you praise God for this time we have together?”

He smiled and swallowed everything that was in his mouth and said, “Let me at least swallow this,” and for the first time in his life as a Christian, he prayed loud with another person. His prayer was simple and very short. He was very nervous.

Throughout their time together, he hardly said anything and she seemed to talk about life in general. And when she picked up her purse to head out, he asked her, “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“No, I don’t but why did you ask me such a question? Isn’t that too personal?” she asked.

“I was wondering if I can see you next time.”

Smiling at him, she asked him, “Are you asking me out?”

Phew! She said it!

He said, as if he was a six year old boy answering to his ma’ma, “Yeees.”

She put her purse down and said, “We’ve known each other now only for few weeks. What do you know about me? I know nothing about you. Why do you want to date me? Do you want to date me so that you will have a date or do you want to date me so you will know me? I personally don’t date a man to know him. I need to know him first, to know at lease his basic information. Then if I want to know him more to see if he is the man I want to commit my life to, I will think of dating him. But you and I hardly know each other. Let me prove it to you right now.” Noticing his nervous face, she wanted to calm him down and said laughingly, “What is my last name?”

He blurted it out as if it was his last name. Then he got her attention!

Not knowing what to expect next to the man who was sitting across her, she said, “Okay, you got me on that one but you still didn’t prove me wrong because I have no idea about your last name.”

He jokingly said, “I’m not on the most wanted list or something. Why do you need to know my last name to date me?”

She sighed and said, “Okay, this is my point. Let’s know each other as a person before we jump into this dating business. For me, dating is a serious business and I don’t want to do it with every man who is interested in me.” Smiling, she added, “For example, we had a nice chat today. And let’s find another opportunity to chat more in order to know each other better.”

And they went to their separate ways. After that his journey of pursuing this girl began in full speed. He couldn’t chat with her over Facebook because she told him that she didn’t want to be his “virtual” friend.

So, he literally took “the project of knowing this girl” as his full time job. The more he learned about her from others and seeing and chatting with her here and there, the more he became determined to make her his own.

After a month or two of calling and texting her for every little or no reason, he managed to convince her that he was the man she wanted to date.

He began attending every church service she wanted to attend. She was involved in her church’s prayer ministry. She was genuinely asking him lots of biblical questions and before he knew it, he became soaked in the Word of God. He bought Bible study materials, books, CDs and DVDs and he seriously began getting soaked in the Word of God.

In one or two occasions, he had an amazing visitation of the Spirit of God while he was studying the Word of God.

He began questioning himself why he wasted so much of his Christian life while the Spirit of God was that close to his heart.

The weird thing was, at least for him, the more he began to know God and His Word, the more he found himself being attracted to this girl who seemed to push him back to His God.

One year went by fast after they started dating. He invited her dinner for their one year “dating anniversary”. He came with a black suit which made her heart skip a beat. It was summer and she looked like a brand new queen in town with a white and light yellow dress. They sat down on the table and gave their drink order. He couldn’t stop staring at her eyes. He stretched his hands to hold hers but as usual she pulled her hands away from him and she said with a smile, “Just because it’s been one year since we’ve been dating doesn’t mean that we can be physically affectionate. If we are meant to be together, it is not only my hands but all my body is going to be yours but until then, you never know, I may be someone else’s wife. So, how can you touch someone else’s wife, huh?”

He didn’t feel offended; he actually felt very proud of her. So, he confidently nodded his head to show her that he agreed with her decision. He was sure at that moment that she was deeply in love with him. He knew that nobody could take this beautiful girl away from him.

They were quiet for a good five minutes, just staring at each other’s eyes. Even the silence of that moment was the most enjoyable and memorable moment of all their dating times for both of them. They ate their dinner and he already ordered her favorite chocolate cake desert, in the way she wanted to, chocolate flower on the top. She picked up the chocolate flower and boom! There was a proposal ring. He immediately knelt down at her knees and struggled to say a word.

Pushing back his tears so that he could speak like a man, he said, “You made my life impossible without you. I want to go to sleep looking at your eyes and  wake up to see your eyes again first thing in the morning. May I have you as my wife? Will you marry me?”

While he was bowing down on her knees, being a little scared of her answer even though he knew all along that she would say “yes”, she bent her head over his head and began crying and with a soft voice, she said, “I sure will marry you. I want to marry you.”

As a courtesy, the restaurant owner sent a small cake, on the top written, “She said “Yes”.” She knew right then that he planned it all out way ahead of time and that made her feel so special. Four waitresses brought the cake, announcing to all the guests, “She said “Yes!” Let’s celebrate with him!” And everybody clapped their hands as he stood and hugged her.

He thought for a second that he was in heaven. He felt like he was the richest, the famous, the smartest and the most handsome man on this planet earth.

At the end of their dinner time, before they went to their separate cars, he asked her to walk around the water which was next to the restaurant. While they were holding their hands and walking around on the track, for the first time he addressed her “My Love” and she didn’t say “Don’t call me like that” as she used to say.

Enjoying the summer breath and the fresh wind which blew over the water, he said to her, “My Love, because of you, I sought God with all my mind, heart, and soul and I found the God I accepted as my personal Lord and Savior a long time ago but rejected Him by the way I lived.” He wiped his tears and continued, “Because of you, I learned to weep. I thought, crying was reserved only for little girls.” He chuckled and continued, “But now my soul and heart has been touched by God so in a very special way that it is just hard for me now to keep myself from crying whenever I begin to praise my God, the God who gave me a second chance. My Love, because of you I learned to ask God to forgive me. Because of you, I learned what it means to be sexually pure. You demanded that I signed up for the “Every Man’s Battle” workshop to learn what it means to be a sexually pure man. I did and I’m eternally grateful for that. You taught me that it is possible to live a life that is different from the norm. And right now, life for me is to live for Christ and to have you next to me as my wife, my suitable helper. You are for me a gift sent directly from God. Please, allow me to kiss you only on your forehead. May I?”

She nodded and he kissed her on her forehead. Before they finished their walk, he turned around, held her both hands and asked her with a mischievous smile, “Okay, you told me you dated only one man before me for three months and you broke up with him. So, I guess I have a right to ask now whether you were physical with him or not. Were you?”

Calmly she looked down on the ground and looked straight at his eyes and said, “If I say, “Yes”, will you change your mind to marry me? Or if I say “No”, will you love me more than you love me now?”

He said, “Hmm” as if to say, “I didn’t see it that way but you’re right.” So, he simply said to her, “You’re right, I don’t need to know.”

She smiled and said, “You will soon find out on your wedding night. Why rush?” His heart melted when she said those words.

Within a week, they signed up for premarital class at their home church. They took the class by themselves because there were no newly married couples registered at the time. They faithfully attended all the classes together without missing even one class. At the last day of their class, the pastor and his wife invited them lunch at their house. They laid their hands on them and prayed. They blessed them and they saw them off, to see them at their wedding day.

He was very excited for that fateful day to come. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking what his first night with his bride is going to be like. He never saw her body above her knees and below her neck. Never! She was very careful not to entice him by the way she was dressing up. Whenever he saw her for a date, he always amazed by the way she adorned herself. She always looked attractive but never seductive.

One day he asked her to go with him to one of the amusement parks where there was swimming pool, roller-coaster rides and other things. Even though he didn’t want to admit, he wanted to take her there because he wanted to see her in a swimming suit. The thing was she didn’t accept his invitation even if he tried three times. So, he used to think to himself like, “Does she have a birth mark or scar on her body that she didn’t want me to see?” But he didn’t dwell on those thoughts because they all were irrelevant for him at the time.

Their wedding ceremony went very well. He didn’t have that much recollection of that day because he was too consumed with the thought of his first night with the girl he loved dearly.

After the dinner party, they went to their hotel room. The room had two bathrooms. So they both jumped into each shower room.

When he came out, he saw his bride’s “flawless” total naked body for the very first time. He kissed her. And she whispered into his ear saying, “I kept this body of mine away from any man so that it will be only yours. No man has seen me like this. I have never slept with any man. This is my very first time. Will you please pray so that God will bless our oneness?”

He went directly down to her feet and began weeping, saying, “Why is God doing this to me? I hurt so many girls. I used and abused their bodies for my own selfish sexual fantasies. I am not worthy to have you. You are worthy to be someone else’s wife, not mine. I didn’t keep my body for you. I gave it to different women. I don’t deserve to have you. Why God, why are You giving her to me? – – – ”

She knelt parallel to him and picked his head up from the floor and closed his mouth with her right hand index finger and began wiping his tears with her left hand. And she said, “I wish you knew how much I don’t deserve to have you. I wish you knew how much I needed God’s forgiveness to have you. I was sexually immoral in my heart but God forgave and saved me from all my wrong sexual choices. And I only asked Him to give me you as a husband. I never asked God to give me any man but you. Yes, you told me everything about your past life but you are willing to be the person God wanted you to be and that for me is a gift from God. And I’m hopelessly in love with you. I can only afford to give my body to nobody else but you;. And – – -” He covered her lips with his and as he got lost gazing at her closed beautiful eyes, he remembered this Bible verse he meditated few weeks back:

“How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride!
    How much more pleasing is your love than wine,
and the fragrance of your perfume
    more than any spice!
Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride;
    milk and honey are under your tongue.
The fragrance of your garments
    is like the fragrance of Lebanon.
You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride;
    you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain.” Song of Solomon 4:10-12 ///