Everything Is Falling Into Place

Hey Mom and Dad,

I tried calling this morning to talk to Mom about this and I wasn't able to get an answer so I thought I'd write a short email since I'll be really busy for the next few days and unable to call.

I haven't really had the chance to talk to you guys about Maria very much, but we had quite the adventerous summer and God really used her to help me decide to go back to school. We've had a lot of opportunities to spend a good amount of time talking and doing things together over the summer and it was always a good and pure friendship. We continued to draw closer to one another, especially towards the end of the summer and had I not been going off to school we would have prayed about pursuing something more than a friendship.

We decided that it would be best if I just went off to school with no expectations for our friendship and that we should continue to pray about what God wanted from our friendship. All of my friends supported this decision, and they emphasized that there would be plenty of good women that I could meet at Steubenville and that I should just put Maria behind me and move on with life.

That was definitely an option, and in a sense that's what I did for the first week I was down here. I continued to pray about our friendship, but outside of the time I spent praying about it I wasn't thinking about her. We didn't have much of a chance to talk for the first week that I was down here and I spent my time meeting lots of people down here.

One thing I quickly came to see is that just because someone goes to Steubenville, it doesn't make them a better person than any of my friends back home. I've definitely met a lot of really cool people, but I've also run into people with drug problems, people who are here to party, people who are immersed in the media, and a lot of people who have been sheltered their entire life and even though they are seniors or grad students they haven't had a chance to grow up because they've never had to face the real world.

There are really good people here, but they aren't any better or worse than people back home.

Last Thursday, Maria and I finally had a chance to really talk again. We talked about our friendship and what God had been saying to each of us through our prayers. I didn't feel like He was telling me to let go of her, and she didn't feel as if He was telling her to let go of me. Neither of us had strong emotional feelings for the other, but we do really cherish our friendship. We decided to just keep praying and on Sunday we had another chance to talk about our friendship.

Throughout the summer we both spent a lot of one on one time with members of the opposite sex, talking and hanging out with them. We both experienced the same thing: They were okay friendships but the friendships never went anywhere. There are only so many casual conversations that you can have before a man and a woman move to a deeper place than just being friends.

We felt that if our friendship was just going to be a casual friendship then we could find people in our own area that we develop that sort of friendship with. There was no need to have a 7 hour distance between us for that sort of friendship and it would be better to just let each other go. We felt it was prudent to take the next couple of days to decide if we should be going deeper with our friendship or if we should go our separate ways.

I've always really really enjoyed talking with her because she has a lot of depth to her and a lot of wisdom. She isn't superficial or worldly in anyway; she's a very solid woman of God. Her friendship meant a lot to me and even when we were going after nothing more than a friendship I did yearn for something deeper with her. Yet if that wasn't God's will then both of us were willing to let go of each other.

We took the last two days to really pray (more) about what we should do. I went to the chapel yesterday before we talked and went through every moment of our friendship to discern if I was trying to force things or if God's hand was orchestrating it.

Our friendship started on Sunday night in West Virginia when I asked her to take walk with me. I had been praying about whether I should ask her or not throughout the day, and when I asked her to take the walk she paused for half a minute to think about it before giving me an answer. I used that time to ask God to allow her to give the answer that He wanted her to give. I was just as okay with a no as I was with a yes. Of course she said yes.

Throughout the summer we had times when we were close and then other times where we didn't really think about each other. God brought us together at the right times; just when we needed it most. She put it best last night on the phone: "Everything in our friendship has been just in time and exactly when we needed it. If it had been any sooner or any later it wouldn't have worked out well at all."

He also spent the summer working on both of us and preparing us for something more than a friendship. At the beginning of the summer we were both really interested in being in a relationship (not with each other at the time) rather than completely focussed and satisfied by God alone. The following really inspired me earlier this summer:

Everyone longs to give themselves completely to someone,
To have a deep soul relationship with another,
To be loved thoroughly and exclusively.
But God, to a Christian, says,
"No, not until you are satisfied, fulfilled, and content
With being loved by Me alone,
With giving yourself totally and unreservedly to Me,
With having an intensely personal and unique relationship with Me alone.
Discovering that only in Me is your satisfaction to be found,
Will you be capable of the perfect human relationship
That I have planned for you.
You will never be united with another until you are united
With Me alone, Exclusive of anyone or anything else,
Exclusive of any other desires or longings.
I want you to stop planning,
Stop wishing,
And allow Me to give you the most thrilling plan existing,
One that you cannot imagine.
Please allow Me to bring it to you.
You just keep watching Me, expecting the greatest things.
Keep experiencing the satisfaction that I AM.
Keep listening and learning the things I tell you.
You just wait.
That's all.
Don't be anxious.
Don't worry.
Don't look at the things you think you want;
Or you'll miss what I want to show you.
And then when you are ready,
I'll surprise you with a love far more wonderful than any you could dream of
You see, until you are ready and until The one I have for you is ready
(I am working even at this moment to have you both ready at the same time),
Until you are both satisfied exclusively with Me
And the life I prepared for you,
You won't be able to experience the love that
Exemplified your relationship with Me.
And this is perfect love.
And dear one, I want you to have this most wonderful love,
I want you to see in the flesh a picture of your
Relationship with Me.
And to enjoy materially and concretely
The everlasting union of beauty, perfection, and love
That I offer you with Myself.
Know that I love you utterly.
I AM God.
Believe it and be satisfied.
~ St. Anthony of Padua ~

When we talked on Sunday night I wasn't sure I was in the place to have more than a friendship with someone. I had gotten to the point where I was uninterested in a relationship about two months ago because I was focussed on God, but I didn't realize I was at that point until I was in Mass yesterday. I realized that I've been so focussed on trying to grow and draw nearer to God that I didn't even notice that I had no emotional desire to be in a relationship. I no longer had a need that I felt I needed to fill. I was at the point where I could give myself freely for the sake of giving and not because I was somehow trying to fill an emptiness in my heart.

As I prayed about it and realized how God had been preparing my heart and how He had been guiding our friendship over the summer I really felt at peace about getting to know Maria on a deeper level. I felt like I would be turning my back on God by saying no; I would have felt the same way if I decided to stay in Lansing rather than coming to Steubenville.

When we talked on the phone last night, she explained what God had been telling her and it was exactly along the same lines. We really felt that even though there was a great physical distance between us that God was giving us the go ahead to start dating.

I don't make a habit of saying no to God, so Maria is now my girlfriend.

Love,
Jonathan