Chapter 28: Reconciliation

 Nancy:

    In hindsight, the unpleasant times stand out because I was struggling so much during those early months: struggling with fear, struggling with the fact that I was a very superficial person. But Loren would come and prove himself to me over and over again. He would bring me gifts, even flowers—my first-ever dozen roses. He would open doors for me and treated me like a lady. The steady, persistent care he showed was the element that overcame my fears and eventually won me over.

    Loren had some struggles of his own from the beginning. He needed me to be more socially expressive to help him bridge that gap, but he was learning and adapting as we grew. I also discovered that frozen corn was an unheard-of treat for a ‘poor old bachelor,’ so I started cooking proper meals when he came.

    We still had communication problems too (Loren called them ‘hiccups’.) To feel truly safe, I needed to be known—which I believe is the number one desire for all women. Loren was listening, but not visibly responding to what I’d said. He would never reply with “Oh, really?” or “That’s interesting,” or anything else to demonstrate that he’d heard me. He’s an intelligent, introspective man, whereas I need lots of attention and response.

    I spoke to him about this, and he asked me to pinch him—literally pinch him—if he did it again. I really didn’t want to do that because I was already struggling with the fact that it was another self-centered complaint. But he insisted and even surprised me by putting an index card under my windshield wiper that said, ‘Have you pinched your boyfriend today?’ It included a little happy face. But in the end, he handled the adjustment so well that no pinching was necessary.

    As time went by, we were striking a new balance and things were improving for both of us. It’s hard to say that we fell in love at once, in the sense of being swept off our feet. Both of us agree that we’d simply grown more and more in love over time, like a seed that grows a little more each day.

    We also began to develop our own brand of humor. I liked to chat in amusing little accents, like Irish or Italian, or Russian, and Loren picked up on that right away. Funny, foreign idioms began to appear in our chats as well, which made them more interesting. But our humor was unique in another way:

    It so often seems that today’s humor is based on creative put-downs, but we would have none of that. In fact, we found ways of complimenting each other humorously instead. It was a little schmaltzy, which made it funny, but it was based on true feelings so it was still edifying (Ephesians 4:29). It also helped close the door on ‘retrospective motive shifting,’ to prevent misunderstandings from happening at a later time (see Chapter 18).

    But on the other hand, when we spoke of ourselves, we used self-deprecating humor. Loren especially liked to do that. For example, he would tell the old story, “When I was a kid, they tied a pork chop around my neck so the dog would play with me,” or things like that. Furthermore, we turned those little stories into parodies on psychology, with the imagined ‘conflicts’ they had produced. (By the way, I completely agree with Loren on psychology now.)

    We began to discover what makes us laugh, what makes us cry, what makes us sing; and we began to know each other’s heart much better. We learned each other’s tastes and preferences, and we shared in each other’s lives in these ways. Sometimes he’ll even go to see a ‘chick flick’ with me ;-)

    During this time, our email continued as well. We constantly spoke about relationships based on Christ and the church. We began to view the Scriptures as God’s love letter to us, through which we could see His heart and thoughts being expressed, and as something we could respond to in a living, loving way of our own. Jesus became both our teacher and our example as He set the tone for our relationship with Him and with each other (Luke 6:40).

    We talked about prayer and about hearing God’s voice, and following Him as we were led by the Holy Spirit. A lot of this may seem theological to you, but when we sought it prayerfully, it was transformed into another dimension of life. It was an actual relationship with the Lord as with another person, and it turned our own relationship into a threefold cord with Him.

    But still, one thing had me worried. As long as we lived in two different cities, our prospects were limited. I began to view this as a test of Loren’s sincerity. Would he be willing to relocate to pursue our relationship? Only then could we become truly serious.

Loren:

    Now that our relationship was back on track, I was faced with two major problems. First, my ‘reliable transportation’ was proving terribly unreliable now, and it was breaking down every week. Never was I stranded on the highway, nor was I late for our meetings, but it did bring quite a financial burden.

    Second, I’d asked my boss about a job transfer to Tulsa, but he’d said ‘No.’ That meant I’d have to begin a long-distance job search all the way from Dallas. If you’ve ever tried that, you’ll know that it can be very difficult. Months went by and I was getting nowhere.

        In the meantime, Nancy was beginning to have her doubts and fears. One night she called me in tears, asking for assurance that I was really doing everything I could to move there. It was breaking my heart.

    Springtime was over, and summer deepened as the dog-days arrived to bake the countryside—and me, too, since the air conditioning in my car had broken down. This made the early morning or late evening the best time for driving. Then came our first cold snap, followed by a pleasant Indian summer. This, too, faded into memory – and with the changing of the leaves, a beautiful autumn came to Oklahoma. But there was still no progress in my search for a job, so I was still making weekend trips to see Nancy.

    Finally we decided to spend Thanksgiving together with her brothers in Indiana. This greatly bolstered her hopes because meeting the family had been an important step to her. And by the time we returned, I’d resolved in my heart what I must do.

    The reason my job transfer request had been denied was because that was the simpler option. For my company, it was easier to leave things the way they were than to set me up in a new location. I had to change that ratio and make the transfer into the easier option after all. And a unique combination of events was about to make that possible:

    In the second week of December 1999, on a very busy day, I walked into my boss’s office and placed an ultimatum on his desk. Please notice the date in particular, because that was the crucial element. I’d timed my approach so that he couldn’t say ‘No.’

    I told him it was my goal to move to Tulsa by the end of the year, so I had come to give him my two weeks’ notice. This put him in a terrible position. By then I was his most experienced employee, which had already caused him to depend on me far too heavily. He simply couldn’t afford to lose me, and the timing made it worse for three reasons:

    First: our company had an insane policy that if you didn’t use your vacation by the end of the year, you’d simply lose it. So naturally, employees with time on their books would disappear in droves from mid-December until New Years. That created manpower problems and service delays, and I was the person who explained all those delays to our customer. Not fun! But without me he’d have to do all that explaining, himself.

    Second: the first week of January was just three weeks away, and that’s the worst time of year for computer failures (Businesses that close for the holidays turn off their computers, only to find that they won’t turn on again, after New Years). My company repaired computers, so we’d surely have backlogs and service delays – just when I was leaving them. Without me, he’d have to handle that extra workload alone.

    Finally, smack in the middle of those two was a unique element: The Y2K scare was just three weeks away. This was a period of great uncertainty for many businesses, and our company handled their computer maintenance and repair, so I would be greatly needed if a crisis emerged.

    Frankly, we’d already handled the Y2K upgrades for our customers, so we were confident that nothing major would go wrong. “But if something does happen,” I said, “it’ll be something we haven’t foreseen.” It was enough to play on his sense of caution.

    “But I do have a suggestion,” I added helpfully. “I haven’t found a new job in Tulsa yet, so maybe I could do this same job from there for a while? I’ve already checked, and they have a spare work station I can use. That way I could stay with the company for the next two months, which would benefit you, and it would give me a source of income while I looked for something else—which would benefit me.”

    My boss was a pretty good guy and he saw the writing on the wall, so he smiled to make my victory easy. “Okay,” he said, and he promised to make the arrangements that day. Meanwhile, I returned to Tulsa to do some apartment hunting.

Nancy:

    We had decided that, before becoming truly serious, we needed to live in the same city for a while. We needed to see each other on a daily basis to see what a constant companionship looked like; and now that it was all coming true, our relationship entered a more serious phase. Conveniently, Loren’s new apartment was less than a five minute walk from mine, so we spent most of our time together.

    A few days after he moved to Tulsa, we went to a Christmas tree farm and had them cut down a fresh tree for us. We decorated it at my apartment using the same, traditional ornaments that had been in my family since childhood. It was a wonderful time for both of us. Afterward, we went out to see the Christmas lights against the backdrop of a snowy evening.

    Over the next few days, each time Loren came over, another present would appear under the tree. Mostly little things, but lots of them. He has such a generous heart, and he takes pleasure in spoiling me. And of course, I was putting presents under the tree as well.

    On Christmas morning we opened our presents together, then shared Christmas dinner at the house of one of my friends—the same friend I’d cried with on the previous Easter. But now things were looking more hopeful!

Loren:

    My move to Tulsa brought indelible memories. Nancy came to Dallas to help me pack, and then returned to Tulsa ahead of me to open my new apartment, while I followed more slowly in a U-haul truck. It was a peaceful, wonderful drive, with Christmas decorations on distance houses all along the roadway. When I arrived at my new apartment, Nancy was already gone, but she’d left the heater going. I called her before going to sleep, and the next morning her employer’s husband came over to help me move in. God bless him! I took him to breakfast afterward and we spoke about the Lord and about mission trips to Australia.

    All of Nancy’s friends were totally wonderful, and her employer (who is also a dear friend), was especially generous. She and Nancy were colleagues at the publishing house, but they’d recently gone out on their own. She invited me to their office Christmas party at an exclusive restaurant and treated me like one of the employee spouses.

    On that night, Nancy wore a fabulous purple dress that I’d never seen before. It literally took my breath away! I told her, “The next day at work, everyone thought I’d worn a red-striped shirt. But actually, my heart had melted and seeped between the cracks in my ribs!” She laughed; and later on that became a private joke. Whenever she dressed extra-nicely, I’d touch my hand to my heart and look at my palm, and cry out, “Red stripes!”

    All of my new work associates were wonderful too. First they’d made it possible for me to move there by opening a workstation. But beyond even that, they were generous and friendly in every way. I mentioned that we’d met through the internet, so they were wonderfully curious to hear our story.

Nancy:

    By January, I was in a quiet turmoil again. Did I need more time? What sort of difference would that make? Or was I just looking for an excuse to sabotage things again? Things had never been this serious before.

    Throughout our relationship, I’d sought the Lord’s will, His advice and His direction. In the meantime, I’d begged two of my very close friends to point out anything that seemed to be a red flag, especially if I seemed blind to it.

    One Sunday after church, we had lunch with our pastor and he encouraged me to be decisive. It was becoming clear that I needed to make a solid decision. I was also working on a photo shoot with a well-known Christian leader, a woman whose name you would immediately recognize. Due to her straightforward nature, she gave the same advice as my pastor but with much greater emphasis!

    Loren had still not proposed, but we had gone so far as to look at rings together. He said he had no idea what sort of jewelry I liked, so he’d asked me for some guidance. As we passed by a jewelry store window, I gave him an example based on a necklace that I admired.

    January slipped into February and nothing was decided, but we were spending lots of time together and talking about life. Valentine’s Day was getting near, and that raised a question in itself. Would that be the day he proposed? I could only wait and see.

Loren:

    I was already sure that I wanted to marry Nancy, but I was biding my time to make sure that she was ready. I didn’t want her to feel that I was rushing her. When I’d first moved from Dallas, I’d thought of waiting for three months, but it wasn’t long before that arbitrary timeframe seemed pointless. I thought we’d proven our compatibility already, and I was sure that, deep down, she agreed with this. And something about that thought galvanized me. “It’s time.”

    Valentine’s Day was drawing near. Valentine’s Day? I thought about that. It was just two weeks away, but I really had the feeling that I needed to act now. Something deep inside told me this, and warned me that something precious would be lost if I delayed. When the fruit was ripe, it was time to take it.

    “Besides,” I thought. “If I propose to her on Valentine’s Day, what would that mean?” I used a little pre-hindsight to consider the answer: ‘Why did you propose to me on that day?’ she might eventually ask. ‘Well, it was Valentine’s Day, right? So how could I not?’ But that’s no reason to propose to someone!

    Something this serious must be based on better, deeply personal things that stand in their own right, without being governed by some outward circumstance. And in any case, Valentine’s Day was too predictable. Nancy would see it as a cookie-cutter pattern and she wouldn’t respect it.

    So I began to hint that I had a very special date in mind. I would like her to wear that same purple dress she’d worn to the Christmas party, which had looked so gorgeous on her. She caught my drift at once, and had her hair done as well. Our date would be on a Saturday evening, February 5th, 2000.

    The story of my proposal includes another important point that I’d like to share with the reader now, and it has to do with making memories:

    Several years earlier, I’d asked an older couple to describe their marriage proposal. They’d blanched and seemed embarrassed. Only then did I realize that there had never actually been a proposal! Over the course of time, they’d simply drifted toward marriage. They’d discussed it so often that a wedding date had somehow emerged. It was a proposal through osmosis!

    Whatever the circumstances behind that process, it had cost the wife a wonderful memory and I wanted to do better for Nancy. So I used a little pre-hindsight to construct a scenario that would turn our engagement into a memory. You’ll read about it in the next chapter.