Photo taken by wedding photographer, Haley Sheffield

This month Nathan and I are celebrating four years of marriage and I decided to blog about our unique love story. I am walking down memory lane and wanted you to join me. We are celebrating and I would like for you to celebrate with us!

In my last blog, I left you with 10 Friendship Moments between my husband and I while we were friends. I went over some special moments I hold dear to my heart while we were in our just friends phase. In memory #10, I wrote about the last time I saw Nathan before he went on his year tour in South Korea. We went out to eat and talked afterwards; we made each other promise to invite one another to our weddings. I also had given him a letter telling him how much I had enjoyed our friendship and didn't want to let that go. I gave him my address and phone number in case he ever wanted to call or write me.

That was May 2008. In August 2008, I started a new quarter in college, haven't heard a peep out of Nathan, and actually hadn't given him much of a thought. Until...

I was driving down the road to my first day of class of the quarter, when all of the sudden, a thought occurred to me: I missed Nathan. I hadn't thought much about him, until that moment. I started to think about him and what he has been up to. 

I came home that day to find a letter from Nathan waiting for me. That started a new phase of life for us.  We wrote one another once a month from then on, and the reason why it was once a month, is that my letter would take 5 days to get to him, but Nathan's letters took two weeks to get to me. Silly USAF mail. 

During the months of August - December 2008, I met this guy name Adam. We got along, flirted a lot, and he was really cute. The only thing I didn't like was that he was not a Christian. And throughout the entire time of our friendship - if you can call it that - I always thought, "What about Nathan? Who would he marry?" Always. I would try to tell myself, "He'll find someone. Why am I so worried about it?" 

In December 2008, I had a falling out with some friends of mine and I remember telling God, "All I want in a spouse is commitment and loyalty to me!" Because of what happened, it made me realize that I valued true friendship loyalty and commitment. And I remember God asking me, "What about Nathan? He has always been loyal. He writes you letters. What guy writes letters?"

That's when I started to connect the dots and realize that maybe Nathan had a crush on me during our entire friendship and it went right over my head. I started to seriously crush on him.

Finally I got up the guts to ask Nathan in one of our letters. On March 19, 2009, I asked him to pray about a possible relationship between us two. I remember Nathan mailing me back, confessing his doubts of it working. Not only had he  been in several long distance relationships before, with all of them ending badly, but had some character doubts that worried him about us making a good fit. But I was very bold and told him that no matter what, I would always accept him for who he was. 

I think another thing that held him back was the fact that he was going to Germany after his tour in South Korea and that was suppose to be a three year tour. So we both knew we wouldn't be seeing a lot of one another. But that didn't stop me.

He called me around end of March, first of April and we started to have phone conversations as well as write our monthly letters. I remember Nathan telling me once that he could see himself growing old with me. (HOW INCREDIBLY SWEET!)

During these phone conversations, we started to fall head over heels with one another. We experienced some really sweet moments as we talked about our days, where we see each other going, and how we couldn't wait to see one another!

He wanted to become official on Facebook as well as status. But I told him no because he was coming back to Georgia in July and I wanted him to wait then. So he put "It's complicated" instead. I thought it was cute and followed suit.

July finally came! I went up to Atlanta and picked him up from the airport! I was so excited to see him! I had arranged for him to stay at a friend's cabin while he stayed in Georgia. I had to work at my summer day camp job during the day, so we hung out in the evening. Then he came to the camp one day and I just so happened to have 11-12 year old girls. They torture that man to death with sayings like, "You'll go down the slide if you love her!"  Oh boy. Another camp counselor told me he was hot and I told her to stay away from him. (I believe she knew I was joking/serious) Brings back such fond memories!

He asked me out on July 12, 2009.He asked me out on July 12, 2009.Nathan asked me out on July 12, 2009. We had our first kiss during this trip, our first make out session, and first trip with one another as an official couple.

The trip ended with Nathan boarding a Greyhound to go home to Indiana for three weeks before boarding a plane to Germany. Yes, that was the most difficult thing ever to do: watch your new boyfriend leave on a Greyhound (do not ask why he would not fly!) and not knowing the next time you'll see him.

We talked on the phone because he reactivated his old one for the next few weeks. Then he boarded a plane to Germany where we started to Skype with one another on a weekly basis. Next time I will talk more about our dating phase, so come back to hear more!

That is how my love story with my Nathan began. How did your love story begin?