When Julie met Robert...

Hi friends, so I thought I’d share the story of how God brought my husband and I together and how He brought about this new season in our lives. It’s quite a story. I’ll probably tell it over a few blogs but I hope it encourages you that God can do anything with our lives when we are surrendered to Him…

It was after nearly 8 years as a single mum and not dating that I first met my now husband. I started hearing about this guy, one of the dads at school, just how great he was, not to mention good-looking. Meh…I wasn't interested. Let me just say that I had some pretty clear ideas of the person I thought I would like to marry and a single dad wasn’t one of them. Not because I thought I was too good for that…hello, I was a single mum…but because I already thought mine and my boys’ lives were complicated enough without throwing more kids and another ex into the mix. No, not for me thanks…or so I thought anyway. God had other plans…

My son ended up being invited to his son’s birthday party. I thought, “okay, so I’ll meet this guy everyone’s talking about.” The funny thing was, weeks before I had felt God begin to speak to me that change was coming and He was beginning to prepare me for a new season. I remember my mum telling me that she’d been praying and she felt that God had told her I was going to be married soon. I was like, “yeah, I know, I sense it too.” And the honest truth was I thought to myself, “Oh my gosh, I think it’s that guy.” We hadn’t even met.

The day I met Robert for the first time, I was trying to keep an open mind. I had been single and a closed book for a very long time and even though I knew God was doing something I was still very guarded and sceptical. That day a sweet friend who knew nothing about what was happening, randomly sent me a text message quote that morning. This was it…

"It's impossible," said pride.

"It's risky," said experience.

"It's pointless," said reason.

"Give it a try," whispered the heart.

I nearly cried. I felt like God was gently telling me to open my heart to what He was doing. I saw him for the first time that afternoon. I’d like to tell you that it was love at first sight and that we both just “knew” and we were married three months later haha but that is not our story.

In the months that followed, I started seeing him at school. I had literally NEVER seen him at school before and then all of a sudden he was EVERYWHERE! Every time I would see him, I’d go into a slight panic and actually try to avoid him because I was too freaked out! Eventually my son got invited to another sleepover a couple months later. This was only the second time I’d spoken to him. It sounds so crazy but I knew in my spirit I was going to marry this guy, although I couldn’t get my head wrapped around how that could possibly happen. It just seemed crazy! We chatted briefly when I picked up my son and somehow I boldly said, “we should all catch up in the holidays.”

A couple of days later he sent me an email with some pics of the boys and the adventures they’d got up to, to which I responded something lame, which started a slow email trail. A few weeks later at the beginning of the holidays, one of my besties I’d confided in, challenged me to email him again about catching up. She was like, “Jules, God has shown you this is the guy, but you’ve got to actually take a step of faith and do something!” I felt sick and completely out of my comfort zone but I sent the email about catching up in the holidays. It took me about 2 hours to write a few sentences but I thought I came off looking pretty cool and witty haha! I didn’t hear back from him for a week. I thought, “Well that was stupid, I’m never doing that again, clearly I’ve got it all wrong, I’m just going to crawl back in my hole and stay single! Fine!”  Eventually he emailed back that he had been away on an army training exercise with no contact, had just got my email, and yes let’s catch up. I thought I’d give it another chance…so we did.

We took the kids to the movies right before Christmas in 2011 and had a nice time chatting and getting to know each other for a few hours afterwards while the kids played. He sent a text that night to say thanks for a nice day & Merry Christmas. I decided I’d done my bit, now it’s up to him. The next time I heard from him was New Year’s Day. This time we decided to catch up without the kids. It would be the 2nd of January, exactly 8 years to the day that my marriage ended.

To be continued…

Jules M x