So I'm Engaged.

So, I proposed yesterday, and it was awesome.
There are two things I'd like this post to accomplish.
The first is to tell you how I did it (to let anyone know that wants to know that's too shy to ask, that's too far away to ask in person, or whatever. And for the record, if you want to know any more details, feel free to chat with me)


Here begins the saga of frustrated attempts:

I had planned to do it over a weekend when Maeve was coming to Logan for a retreat at bear lake with a Christian Club on USU campus called Cru. This was two weeks ago. The plan was to have her carpool up with somebody else (since I had to be there early), then whoever was in the middle seat would have a sudden urge to use the bathroom at the overlook above the lake. Maeve would get out to let the person go, then they'd shut the door and just drive off. A trail of mason jars with candles would be leading off into the woods next to a pair of snowshoes with me on the other end, and a fantastic view of the valley and the frozen lake behind me.
Good, yeah?
But then we didn't get enough people for the retreat and we couldn't afford to use the facility on friday AND saturday night, so we were forced to drop the first night of the retreat. Following this news, of course, Maeve was all like:
"So I can just ride up with you!"
And I was all,
"YeeEeeEAah! That's...great!"
And then it was snowing like the inside of a snow cone maker on the drive up so it would have been miserable anyway.


NARRATOR INTERJECTION: I have a slight fixation on candles in mason jars. Yay pinterest. Or something. They look like this:

Don't you make fun of my interest in pinterest. It's like facebook without all of the useless drivel and more interesting/funny things.


On with the story.

So, of course, I was frustrated. The ring, unfortunately, had not yet come in the mail, so I was planning on using an heirloom ring that Maeve's family graciously offered for temporary use, or a plain silver band to stand in the place of the real one.

The following weekend rolled around and I was itching to go ask this crazy, beautiful girl to be my wife. I figured I could ambush her after work on friday night, with candles in mason jars (duh) surrounding her car, and me in her truck bed playing this song: (on Oswald, mah guitar)

The timing was wrong, however. I called Maeve's mom before each of these attempts, and she was marvelously patient and helpful as I sorted everything out. That weekend her family wanted to go skiing, and she wanted to have friends from Salt Lake over the following day.
One of the things Maeve has been frustrated about has been the fact that school, work, and I have to admit, me, is crowding out time with her family.
The sense I got was to wait, and to give that time to her family since it was a rare opportunity in this stage of life. So I did.


'NUTHER NARRATOR INTERJECTION: "What gives, man! You had the opportunity, so why didn't you just do it? Who cares if everything is perfect?"
I'm glad you asked.
The engagement, as you will soon see, consisted of a few withdrawals from my checking account, an evening spent with someone I love to be around, and a purdy ring. From a worldly stance, if that is all that an engagement consists of, then it's just a nice date that sets a marker for happy marriage times when it's more socially acceptable to move in together (which we aren't right now, just to clarify).
Being a Christian, I believe a marriage is a symbol of Christ's relationship with the Church. Thus an engagement is similar to the period when God "chose us before the foundation of the world" as stated many times in the letters of Paul. He pursues us, marks us as his own, then makes it so.
I have pursued her, and now have marked her as somebody that I would like to make my own. I have yet to make it so.
Thus, if she shares this view, I don't have to feel hard-pressed to grab her before she's gone. If she wants to be mine, she will say yes.
Thus, I can and should consider the lives of others into this thing, and look for a time that will cause the least stress possible.


That said, onward.

Week three. Spring break was coming, so I figured this would be a good time to do it since neither of us had an agenda for the time off.
I was feeling all depressed about it on Monday, when lo and behold, I got an email from the private metal smith I ordered the ring from saying she shipped it that morning.
I hadn't been expecting it for another two weeks.
So I started to get excited.
The following day my boss offered to let me use a piece of property his father owned that was under his care while his dad was gone. It was really cool. There was a big open field, lots of trees, and a pond. The snow had recently melted and everything was still dead, but it looked rustic and calm. If you know Maeve, she loves that kind of thing.
I started to get really excited.
Then the ring didn't show up on the expected day.
I started to panic. I checked the tracking number online probably thirty times over the next two days when bam, it showed up on Friday morning two hours after the tracking number displayed its arrival in Utah.

So, of course, lots of mason jars with candles were everywhere.
There was sushi, and it was good.
There was hot chocolate and Stewart's Cream Soda (cuz, well, you know) and a variety of other snacks and s'mores beautifully arranged by my family.
There was lovely tableware provided by my mother and grandmother.
There was my sister hiding in a bush at precisely six o'clock, twenty-four minutes before sunset with a camera to catch the moment.
There was a rock three stones from the top of a set of makeshift stairs where she'd be standing, with tree branches knocked out of the way to give my sister a clear shot,
And there was a ring,
and a lovely woman.

Here's a fairly accurate script of what I said (I planned it quite carefully):

"When a man proposes, oftentimes he'll start by saying something about how long they've been together.
I think that's silly,
because it betrays a lack of thought as to the significance of what he's preparing to do.
I then thought of the symbolism of a man kneeling while he does it.
I think the reasons for this are twofold.
The first is that he is utterly smitten by how radiantly beautiful she is, and can do nothing but fall to his knees before her.
The second is that he is offering up the most tender thing he can possibly give to another human being for the rest of his life.
So, Maeve Buchanan,
will you be my wife?"

So there you have it.

I mentioned I had two reasons for writing this.

Here's the second, which I started to address earlier: The engagement is not about how "good" the proposal itself is.
This may be old hat to most of you; it's for me to explain to anyone who wants to know what my heart is behind all of this.
Neither of us are emotionally explosive people.
Yes, we're people, so we have our moments, but we don't freak out over things.
Maeve was smiling, and she squeezed the tar out of me afterward and laughed a bit, but she didn't start weeping or squealing or anything.
I'm NOT putting down anyone who reacts like that, I just want you to understand why that didn't happen here.
We already determined that we wanted to be married. That's something that I think needs to be talked about, because in his haste, a man may propose to somebody who is totally not ready for that step. Then she says yes because it seems like a good idea, when in fact most facets of what a marriage would look like between the two have not yet been discussed.
Marriage esplodes, people are sad.
A lovely engagement (as I hope I made it to be with the help of my awesome family) is most likely the other person at their best.
There needs to be a time when you have to deal with the other person at their worst.

Lots of people within the church talk about being "ready" for marriage, then they don't tell you what that means, so all you're left with is a nagging feeling that you have to be more morally stable than you are for God to grant you a spouse. And then you feel guilty that you aren't good enough, and then you become bitter if God never gives you a girlfriend, and then you leave the church because clearly, you were not ready for it and God doesn't love you enough to change you.
I hope you know that this cannot be and is not the way things are.
I can tell you that when Maeve and I started dating, I had just come out of a big video game addiction, and I was dealing with anger, patience issues, and disrespect for authority. I am by no means perfect, but God deemed it necessary for Maeve to come into my life right then. Surprisingly, she loved me through all of that, and was used by God to continue to make me into the man He had in mind for me to be. I am still a very very flawed human being. That's the only kind of human being there is. But I have certainly changed.
Being ready for marriage is not a certain level of good person-ness (not a word. Deal with it). It's being willing to look at someone in the depth of their sin and saying "I will love you anyway through this." Again. And again. And again.
If you have more baggage, it will be harder. But the same principle applies, and it always applies, because it's the same thing God does for you. Again. And again. And again.

Yes I'm engaged. No nothing is certain. But God is good, and Maeve is proof of that. He gets all the credit, and my goal is to reflect his love for me into the way I love Maeve today, the days between now and when we are married, and all of the days after that.