{"id":799,"date":"2013-04-08T17:06:07","date_gmt":"2013-04-08T17:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kandynolesstevens.com\/?p=799"},"modified":"2013-04-08T17:06:07","modified_gmt":"2013-04-08T17:06:07","slug":"behold-it-was-rachel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/?p=799","title":{"rendered":"Behold it was . . . Rachel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sixteen years ago, when we bought our house, we thought that this would be a great starter home, and in a few years we would buy the one of our dreams.\u00a0 After settling in and getting to know our neighbors, our roots\u00a0grew deeper and deeper.\u00a0 One day I was sharing those sentiments with my Mama, and what she said seemed to settle the matter.\u00a0 \u201cWell, honey, you were going to move until your neighbors convinced you otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n

So it goes with much of what happens in my life.\u00a0 I often have plans or standards until God shows me that my plans need to change, or at least, my thinking needs to bend.\u00a0 So it has recently gone with our family\u2019s thoughts on dating.<\/p>\n

Our rule has always been: No Dating. No Dating. No Dating in high school. Our thoughts were you are only kids once. Then along came a sweet girl in study hall.\u00a0Blast that study hall – where no\u00a0one actually does any studying!\u00a0\u00a0In all honesty,\u00a0our families have known each other for years, but the girl suddenly went from just a girl we knew to the interest of our son\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n

As this budding romance began, I had some conversations with the young lady\u2019s mom which in turn led to our family praying about this situation. \u00a0She knew our family’s stand on dating, and she also knew us to be people of our words.<\/p>\n

Many know that the verse of my title actually ends in \u201cBehold it was Leah.\u201d\u00a0 Genesis 29:25 (NIV) Jacob\u2019s surprise ending to what he thought was going to be the love of his life, but ended in a major disappointment. \u00a0\u00a0Our willingness to pray about the situation led from our awareness that perhaps our thoughts needed some adjusting.\u00a0 One realization was our sadness that our young man wasn\u2019t so little and wouldn\u2019t be living with us for that many more years, and the other was that he would have plenty of his own Leah moments in life as that growing up took place.\u00a0 Having rigidity in our parenting isn\u2019t something we were known for; so, we didn’t want to begin now, causing all of us disappointment.<\/p>\n

After looking at how he has conducted himself in every other aspect of life and after spending much time in prayer, we knew that our thinking was based not on the responsible young man who lives with us. We decided that as long as one condition was met, the two could begin dating (which mostly consists of hanging out at either house with parents home).\u00a0 We have always expected our sons to be gentlemen and this was no exception.\u00a0 The condition: we required Sawyer to ask her parents\u2019 permission to date her and to share about his faith and how he would conduct himself with their daughter.\u00a0 Showing courage beyond his years, he did.<\/p>\n

But that is only part of the story . . .<\/p>\n

The sweet girl shares his love for Jesus and for others. Both share a love for little kids \u2013 she\u2019s a Sunday school teacher while\u00a0he coaches little kid football. Family dinners, movie nights, impromptu suppers after sporting events became routine. (I will admit that it probably took some time to get used to our senses of humor.) Over time, she just blended right into the fold of this crazy life we lead around here.<\/p>\n

So even though, I am still having a hard time letting go of childhood for a soon-to-be man, I could not be more thankful that the girl we all get to grow up with is Rachel.<\/p>\n

God only knows what the future holds for them each as individuals, much less as a couple, but I do know that when he was little we prayed for \u201cthe girl\u201d he would find someday.\u00a0 I just didn\u2019t think we\u2019d get to meet her so soon.<\/p>\n

\"sawyer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sixteen years ago, when we bought our house, we thought that this would be a great starter home, and in a few years we would buy the one of our dreams.\u00a0 After settling in and getting to know our neighbors, our roots\u00a0grew deeper and deeper.\u00a0 One day I was sharing those sentiments with my Mama, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[145,204,242,317,380,518,616],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}