Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23 

Today is a day of bliss, a day where I can not dismiss or avoid or forget the abundance that God has given me. To be honest, I’ve been trying to forget God’s goodness. Between my health and our difficulty conceiving, I’ve done my best to shut God out–something I’ve never even considered until now. But, as He does, He always reminds me of the God that he is: kind, just, and loving.

Today marks the second year of my marriage coming to a close, and the beginning of the third year. There is nothing that reminds me of God’s faithfulness like my marriage does. Today, I want to focus on joy.

For those of you who haven’t already heard it (or grown tired of hearing it), this is the story of God’s character in action, of His plan come to life, and of me and my husband.

 

THE BEGINNING

I don’t remember processing what Anthony looked like back then; I never had a real reason to. I can recall bits and pieces and pull from old photos now, though. He was scrawny and tall with an ego that was too big for him, though he wore it as if he deserved it. I didn’t notice him. I didn’t think of him. I was just stuck on the eighth-grade gym class flag football team with him as the captain. He didn’t pick me last, but I was in the bottom three at best. It wasn’t surprising to me. While I was a well-known brain in school, I wasn’t the most desirable teammate by a long shot, with my lack of coordination, strength, and speed. I simply survived the required exercise course, that was all I intended to do. This was just another event forcing me to put up with the macho man act from pre-pubescent boys.

I wouldn’t have thought much of him, had he not made his presence unavoidable.

“Hey.” I motioned to Anthony who was stretching. Really? I thought, this is a middle school, “team sports” football team. “We want to kick the ball,” I said, holding the football in my hand and giggling with a friend of mine at the beginning of the game. Obviously, neither of us took this very seriously.

He looked at us for no more than a few seconds before grabbing the ball from me and pushed us aside. He rhetorically asked, “You want to win, don’t you?” only moments before kicking the football to the other team.

Now, while I was completely open to admitting that my athletic ability was not impressive and my team spirit was lacking, I never did do well with accepting criticism from pompous assholes. By the time the ball reached the other side of the field, I’d decided that he was one of the most insufferable people I’d ever met.

One of the members of the opposing team was running down the field, football in hand, headed for the end zone. The plastic flags attached to his belt flew behind him as he sprinted my way. Now was my chance to prove that I was just as capable as anyone on the field, to show Anthony how wrong he was. The boy inched closer to me, I calculated his speed, I didn’t want to get tackled for this, I could easily grab his waistband, though.

I can’t say for certain, but there is about a ninety-percent chance that I was smiling when I stepped aside and let the boy pass me to score a touchdown.

It only took a moment for Anthony to storm up the field toward me—not breaking his stare. I wasn’t concerned. I simply folded my arms and waited to receive him.

“What the hell was that?” He growled.

“Oh,” I said, opening my eyes wide like a helpless puppy. “I’m sorry, was I supposed to do something about that?” I waited to see his frustration grow before answering my own question. “I guess I’m just too stupid to know how to play this game.”

His face squirmed under the additional dose of anger. “I didn’t know you were like that,” he said, still glaring at me.

“Well, now you do,” I said and walked away with my yellow flags fluttering around my waist as I did.

That encounter proved to be important for two reasons. First, it was the moment that I decided I hated Anthony Hanzlik. Second, as I later learned, it was the moment that Anthony Hanzlik decided he loved me.

THE MIDDLE

Our relationship grew fast, faster and deeper than any other friendship I’d ever had. We had a few classes together and were always talking, laughing, and overall, causing a scene wherever we went. I never thought of him as anything more than a friend (minus the week we dated–at the end of which, I dumped him because he was “too clingy”–I know, I wasn’t very nice back then). But he always saw the potential for more. He’d tell me all of the time that he believed we’d end up together. We were 13! Of course, I thought he’d gone mad.

I always dismissed his advances and had a seemingly never-ending list of reasons why he and I would never work long-term. In truth, he had been Friendzoned bad.

As we grew, our relationship did as well. The simplicity and ease of our relationship never changed, but the world around us did. Boyfriends and girlfriends came and went, and with them our own trials. Our friendship experienced turbulence through our middle years.

We’d stopped talking several times, the longest was a 2-year stint in high school, after a nasty fight that ended in both of us saying some pretty terrible things. Even though I didn’t think we’d ever find a way to be friends again, I prayed for it. I remember so clearly the nights of tears over the loss of my best friend. I remember how many times I prayed the simple prayer, “bring him home to me.” No, I never thought it was romantic and I still stand by the fact that it wasn’t, but our souls were intertwined, rooted in each other, and I couldn’t dig him out.

By the second year, I’d done my best to bury him. I had boyfriends during that time that I was invested in and his absence didn’t feel so obvious. But then, only a few months before graduation, we began talking again.

He was older now. He’d changed his horrible haircut, grew a beard, added some muscle. “It’s only a matter of time,” my friends would say, “he’s still in love with you, you know.” And I didn’t know. I was still angry at him and still holding onto the hurt from years before. I was ready to leave this place, these people, this town, to go experience college on my own. His presence, while it gave me closure in some ways, didn’t change that I was getting out and never looking back.

THE (REAL) BEGINNING

There I was again, on the other line of a phone call with Anthony. But somehow this time was different. It had been two years since the last time I could recall what staying up late with him talking about life and love and the big hopes we had for it all felt like. I sensed the dust swirling around me, entering into a territory I hadn’t allowed myself to go since our last fight. Sure, we’d had conversations, but I made sure he never got too comfortable. I didn’t want him to use my forgiveness against me. I didn’t want him to think our friendship had mended just because I’d let go of my anger.

His voice was groggy and irritated when he answered. Though I told him I’d call, he was surprised that I followed through. I rarely did anything that benefitted him over myself.

“I just don’t know where we stand right now,” I said. I’d tried to draw the lines of our relationship clear and crisp, but he never seemed to notice.

“What do you mean?” He asked. I could hear him stretching his body awake through the speaker.

“I just don’t know how you feel about me.” It was a fair thought, in my mind. I didn’t know if he was angry with me for pushing him away or if he understood why I did. I couldn’t help but recall his cruel words that ended our friendship abruptly two winters before.

“I love you, Lindsay.” He said it so nonchalantly that it hardly registered with me.

“Yes, I know you love me but you’re not in love with me,” I said, quoting a phrase he’d said to me many times before.

“God, really, Lindsay? You buy that?” He laughed slightly.

“What do you mean?” I could picture him rolling his eyes at my confusion.

“Lindsay, that’s just what people say when they don’t want to come right out and say they love you. I love you, Lindsay. I’m in love with you. I always have been.”

I’d told him a hundred times in the span of our friendship not to confess his love to me, though he never listened. All his love did was complicate things for me. I didn’t need a boyfriend; I had one or was always pursuing one. I needed his companionship. I needed his steadiness and his shoulder and his arms. I didn’t have any interest in his love.

Something, though, stopped me from interjecting and pushing back. Something told me to let him speak, even if it was just to say his peace.

“You,” he started and sighed before continuing, “you’re the only person like you. You know the reason why I always hated your boyfriends?”

“Because you were always trying to date me,” I retorted.

“No, Lindsay, because I saw you go back to them even when they treated you like crap, and I always knew I could give you what they couldn’t.”

“And what was that?” I wasn’t going to concede to his words easily, words were empty.

“I knew that I understood you in a way that none of them could,” he said.

I thought for a moment but couldn’t disagree, so I let him go on.

“Lindsay, I’m going to be honest with you. You can be horrible sometimes.”

I snorted at the lovely compliment.

He continued, “You can say things that are just mean. You’ve never cared about how I felt about things and yeah, you are extremely selfish. You never apologize when you’re wrong. You purposely ignore me just to make sure I remember how much I hurt you.”

“Is there a point to this?” I asked, irritated.

He sighed. “But this is who you are, Lindsay and even when you drive me completely insane, I love all of those parts of you. The mean and unfair parts of you, I love them. Not in spite of them, not outside of them. I love you with them. I don’t look at you and pick out bits and pieces of you to love like everyone else, I love you. I love everything that is you.”

I was silent. I didn’t realize I was crying until I wiped my face. I had no sly comment to throw at him. I had nothing to fight back with. I just remained quiet. He didn’t say any of it hoping for a response. It was a statement, an answer. It wasn’t a pause or a question. It was his truth. It was the truth.

Something changed in me. His sincerity had quelled the anger I held toward him. His vulnerability took away my need to defend myself. He sacrificed his pride and didn’t ask that I do the same. He didn’t ask for anything from me but willingly gave me everything.

So I said the only thing I could say to him: “You are the worst, Hanzlik, the absolute worst.”

He laughed, “I know, Pohl. I know I am.”

I don’t know how aware I was back then, but I now know that was the day my search for love ended.

THE NOW

Fast forward five years and here we are, at the beginning of the third year of our marriage. When I look back at everything we went through together and all the drama we brought into each others’ lives, I know unequivocally that this was God’s plan all along. I didn’t know it then when he did not immediately answer my prayers and return Anthony to me. I didn’t know it when I fought with that young boy on a football field. Even if I did know, I never would’ve believed anyone if they told me I’d end up marrying Anthony Hanzlik.

Even when I married him, I didn’t know what a year, or two years down the road would look like. Now I know that Anthony is the greatest gift God has ever given me and the greatest gift I could’ve ever asked for–someone who loves me unconditionally, who grows and challenges me, and someone who loves bunnies :).

 

As you are going through the difficult and barren seasons of your life, remember when God has been faithful to you. It’s not to establish God’s credibility (as He shouldn’t and doesn’t need to), it’s to remind you of the trust that has already grown between you.