{Day Twenty-One} :: People Need Second Chances (A Love Story, Part Two)

 If you thought yesterday's post should have ended with "And they lived happily ever after," think again.

I wish I could say that we high school sweethearts stayed together through thick and thin until the day we got married five years later, but that just wouldn't be true.

So before I tell you the how of today's lesson, let me tell you the what: people need second chances.

Of course what seems like the biggest decision of your life has to be made during your senior year of high school: whether to attend college and which one.

Hubby and I did our best to choose our college independently of one another. And I think I did a pretty good job considering I definitely didn't want to be that girl that followed a guy because everyone knew high school relationships didn't usually last in college (way to set up myself for failure!). Even so, we ended up at the same place - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, home of the finest college basketball team anywhere (sorry, couldn't resist).

Spring semester held many conversations about whether we wanted to stay together into college or not. And with some hesitation on my part and great confidence on Hubby's part, we decided to go as boyfriend and girlfriend and just see what happens.


What happened was a disaster. For lots of reasons - some reasonable and some nuts - I broke up with Hubby by October. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It even seemed like the right decision. And I felt pretty final about it.

Unit three or four weeks later when I was sitting with him and some friends in an economics class we shared. I can't remember exactly what it was that he did - I think he was treating a slightly awkward girl who sat near us with a kindness no one else showed her - but I do remember thinking That is the kind of man I'd like to marry someday.

Right then and there I knew I had made the biggest mistake ever. Right then and there I started begging God for a second chance. For the next four months I hung around Hubby and our friends hoping he would notice I was still interested. Hoping he would see the mistake, too. And when he did notice, when he did admit his own lingering interest, it took another two months to convince him I had no desire to hurt him ever again, to convince him if he gave me another shot I was in it for the long haul.

Sometimes I still can't quite understand why, but he gave me the second chance I had desperately longed for. He asked me out - for the second time - six days before my dad's stroke. And in the weeks following he was my greatest support.

Now here's where you get to say and they lived happily ever after. But that would still be a little bit untrue. Yes, we did continue dating right into our engagement and marriage with no other interruptions. But we're learning this life - and especially marriage - is about second and third and fourth and fifth chances. Chances that go on and on and never stop. Chances that come with whole and complete love and forgiveness.

And every single day I'm so grateful to be learning this lesson with him for the rest of my life.

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Here for the first time? This post is part of a 31 days series of lessons I've learned from my from my family. 

You can read the whole thing right here.