I know, I know, bestest is not a word, or is it?? I say it to my husband so often that my phone has it as auto correct and fill in now lol. I can’t help but use that word because he is truly the bestest thing that’s ever happened to me.
Fourteen years ago we were two teenagers in love with each other, saying I do, without having any idea what that even entailed. I want to say that I was marrying the man of my dreams but to be honest he was slightly different then my “unrealistic” dream man. We went to school together and the first time my mother met him, she sensed he had “eyes” for me so she came to me and flat out told me that he was not even to be considered as an option for dating. I was a very compliant 14 year old, so I told her that that wouldn’t be a problem, he wasn’t the Mr. Perfect that I had envisioned for myself anyway.
There were a few traits about him though that I just couldn’t shake off. First and foremost it was his love for Jesus. He passionately loved God with all his heart and it caused me to want to know the Lord even deeper for myself. The way he loved God through playing guitar and worshiping was definitely the number one thing on my list for my future husband. The other thing was who he was, something about him carried a sense of joy and peace and all the things that made you want to be around him. His big ol smile was also contagious and he was always joking around and laughing. (I didn’t always find him funny, it takes a lot to impress me I guess ;) )
We went to a small private school where we did a lot of activities together with all the grade levels. Every day as I drove my siblings to school my little brother would say “I sure hope Kyle will be there today” I asked him why one day and he said that “it’s never the same when he’s not there, he’s the only one who can put a good mood in the room and the teachers were all happier when he was there too.” The truth is we all thought that. He somehow could convince the teacher to get out of doing school and just do something fun or have some worship time. It’s like the whole schools atmosphere hung on only this one guy.
He loved kids and just knew how to make everyone feel involved and seen. That was another big thing I secretly admired about him, the way he was with kids. My aunt was the children’s director at our church and she’s met Kyle a few times and although he didn’t attend our church at the time, she still asked me to invite him to help out with kids camp, the summer after we graduated. He gladly came, he was a leader of a boys group and I had a girls group. We saw each other every day and continued to be friends/acquaintances as usual. But something was different about that week. Every single day, multiple people asked me if he was my “boy friend” (in Russian it’s “жених” lol) My pastor took me aside and asked me if there was anything I needed to talk to him about, pertaining to a particular young man, I told him OF COURSE NOT, why would you ever think that?? (My pastor was like a mentor to me and told me that before I make any serious decisions he would have to approve of the young man) I was shocked. I always tried so hard to never be alone with anyone or giving off any reason for someone to think anything about me. But all the girls in my group and the ladies in the kitchen would tease me about him that whole week. So I decided to look for the right time to ask Kyle for myself and see if maybe he was telling people something, even though I assumed he wasn’t because he never gave me a reason to question him that way.
The day or so before camp was over I woke up having butterflies in my tummy when he walked by me. I never had that before in all the time I knew him, so I started thinking that what people were saying was getting to my head. That week my mother and I were fasting together. I had just graduated High School and was praying for the Lord to show me what to do next in my life. I was only sixteen and had always wanted to go to Bible college. So mother and I were praying about what, where and when. That same day that I had woken up with butterflies, my mom comes to me and says “we need to talk” it was pretty urgent and had to be so private that we took a canoe out into the middle of the lake. She starts by asking me if I remember the conversation she had with me about Kyle that first time she met him (two years ago), I said of coarse I do. She proceeded to give me all the reasons why she was against me dating him and then she tells me that, that morning the Lord gave her three passages out of the Bible to counteract all her reasons for not accepting him. She told me that the Lord told her he would be her son and that now when she looks at him she just sees him as that and loves him like her own….
Um… can you imagine?? Lol I just sat there numb and speechless cause at that point, I took my butterfly feelings and my pastors chat with me and all the teasing as conformation that this guy, that I didn’t even consider as an option all these years was now supposed to be the guy I marry… Aaaaand how in the world am I supposed to tell him that??? Haha What if he couldn’t care less about me, while me and everyone else are doing all this matchmaking.
Well I continued to pray and ask for more conformation (cause all that was definitely not enough lol) I don’t remember if my brother invited Kyle over or if maybe I had texted him, to come so that we could talk. He was friends with my brother so came over a lot but every time he would come, my mother unexpectedly had an urgent errand for me to run across town, that way we would have no opportunity to get to know each other haha, clever woman. I thank God for that! Because instead of growing closer to Kyle, as i’m sure we naturally would have. I focused all my time and attention on Jesus and my relationship with him my last few years as a single teenager.
Anyway he came over and we sat on our back porch swing. He asked me why I wanted to talk all of a sudden and I started off by asking him if he was spreading any rumors about us being together. He said no, of coarse he wasn’t and asked why I would even ever think that. So I told him about all the people questioning me and the talk my pastor had with me. He quickly apologized for that. I then asked him what he thought about me and he told me a secret, that he’s had since he first met me. And that was that, when we first met and he got to know me, he prayed and asked God if I could be his wife. I knew he’s dated before, obviously probably with no intentions of marriage, so I was amazed that he would jump straight to marriage talk about me without “dating”. After he shared how he felt, he asked me what I thought so I went on to tell him the experience I had the previous few days and what my mother told me. He was sooo excited lol we continued talking and decided that we wouldn’t waste too much time on dating since we both knew it was God bringing us together. After our chat we went inside, my family was all suspicious acting like they weren’t just spying on us. LOL. Kyle went up to my mom and asked her if he could call her mom. And from that day he never stopped. Later he met with my dad and asked for his permission to marry me and to my surprise my dad didn’t hesitate and said yes. My dad had a long list of qualifications that the guy had to meet and he even had a few prospects in mind for me to consider, so I was so nervous Kyle would either not qualify or would have to earn my hand in marriage. (My dad often joked about the Bible story with Jacob working for Rachel for all those years) But my dad said that if this is the Lords doing then who is he to stand in the way. How awesome! To clarify what my dad mostly wanted because I was still only sixteen was someone older. With a stable job and a way to provide and for that security to be in place. He had a list of other things that Kyle’s family needed to be/have etc.. he basically didn’t qualify for anything (especially being Russian lol) but thank God my dad so quickly looked past all that. “Humanly speaking” if we were to go and make decisions based off of what we saw in the natural and only what we thought we wanted/needed then I would have most likely never married Kyle and I can’t even imagine my life without him now.
I did respect my pastor so we set up a time to meet with him too. He just sat there and laughed cause he said he knew all along that we would end up being together. (How did everyone see it but us??) So in the end we had his blessings too.
I later met up with our schools director/teacher/mentor/friend, she was all those things to us. To tell her about Kyle and I, before I even started to talk because I was so nervous, she said “let me guess, you’re trying to tell me that you and Kyle are finally together?” What!?!? I asked her who told her and she said, “no one, I knew all along that you’d be together.” She said that from the very beginning when the two of us where in the room together, she would see these visions of sorts, of a battle happening in the Spirit and she knew that we would end up together. She said that the teachers would always talk about us behind our backs because they all sensed it. Well that’s that. When the right timing came we did end up together.
We got engaged right away and then decided to wait a year for next spring to get married. During that year we got to know each other a bit, on a more personal level and quickly realized how absolutely, totally opposite and incompatible we were. Haha. We argued about EVERYTHING, my little brother used to say “the honeys must have argued again, because they aren’t talking to each other” We called each other “honey” so my family called us “the honeys” lol. Yeah that year was tough, but we got through it and hung on, to the fact that the Lord brought us together, so he would help us through this crazy life we were just beginning.
Things were hard for a long time. We had awesome times too don’t get me wrong. We were just two people with opposite up bringing, almost in every area we didn’t see eye to eye and neither of us wanted to back down on our strong will and agree to compromise. So when year number five came, we almost gave up on each other. Praise God he didn’t give up on us. He told me to try fasting again so I did, and that changed everything. Because it changed ME it drew me closer to Jesus because every morning I started off interceding, praying and worshiping while giving all my life to Jesus again and again. You can read some more about how I’m constantly still doing that, in probably most of my previous entries because now, it’s become a lifestyle for me and it’s transformed my life!
As I began to change, my husband began to soften up towards me and over time we were talking again and being more of a family. You would think that if God is doing something then things would naturally be easy but that is not the case. We still have to seek him for wisdom and his unconditional love and forgiveness for each other every day. People look at us now and say we have it “easy” but oh boy do they not realize how much “dying to self” we had/have to go through before we finally get to experience life with heaven on earth.
I feel like I can finally say that I am married to the man of my dreams. Yeah maybe he wasn’t in the beginning but he sure is now! He treats me better than I could ever deserve, spoils me beyond any girls dreams and the most important thing is that I can trust him to always be there for me, with me and for our family. He loves God and to this day that is the most important thing for me. It looks different now but that’s ok we are growing, learning and experiencing this life together. I enjoy every moment of our life and look forward to what God has in store because I know the best is yet to come!
This concludes our 14 year (15 if you count dating) love story. To be continued…
Natty
Darling, thank you sooo much for choosing me to do this life with. Thank you for not giving up on me, for loving me even when I’m unlovable. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I am a better person because of you. Thank you for loving me and our kiddos so well. You are my bestest friend and always will be. I love you so much.
Forever yours,
Natashinka