Hello again!

So this post comes to you from...my couch. In between taking deep breaths trying not to eject the contents of my stomach from my mouth.

Ugh.

Yeah, I went the whole winter at Children's without getting so much as a sniffle...but Gastro season is upon us and I've got it. Yuck. BUT, it could be worse. I only feel like vomiting and have not actually done so yet, amazingly.

I've been really busy and just otherwise....preoccupied recently, hence the lack of posts. (smile) Really preoccupied. The Lord has been restful and sweet lately, Awaken at church has been super good lately, work is busy getting ready to move and I've been spending any time the both of us have available hanging out with Justin.

I've grown pretty attached to him, which is good, since he's my boyfriend. :)

Oh, that is such a sweet and beautiful story thus far. And I am waiting for him to come over and some of you have asked, so here is a Reader's Digest version of the story thus far.

We met over the internet at first last May. (lol...yeah, I know) We then talked over the internet/facebook/email through until about August. Things got busy then, and we actually didn't talk until we ran into each other (by accident) in November at the young adults ministry, Apex, at his church. My friend Nikki wanted to go check it out for the first time and didn't want to go alone. I got the night off and went with her.

Justin and I saw each other, and we both recognized each other, almost right away, but didn't actually talk until the end of the night. We almost bumped into each other, for real! We said hi, I realized just how TALL he is, and he offered to show us the church, an offer which I accepted, of course! :) I had plans to Facebook him when I got home, but low and behold, he had beat me to it!

We went on our first date a few weeks later in mid-December after a series of emails and Facebook's. We went to North Park Clubhouse in Robinson and bowling in Crafton after. We had a great time. I was amazed at how much we had in common. Then, to my great delight, at the end of the date, he laid out his convictions about dating, and said that he would really like to hang out with our friends in groups, become friends, and then see if there was anything romantic there. I agree and thus it began!

We hung out in numerous coffee shops, outings with our friends, church events and the like over about two and a half months, January to mid March. He was completely serious about just being friends and truly treated me as his sister in Christ. I had a hard time adjusting to that at first, because I just wanted to figure out whether I like him or not and be able to "know"! I just didn't know how I felt about him and I even at one point said to Justin, "I just don't know about you, Justin Good." However, the Lord slowly showed me that the only thing I had to figure out here was if we could be friends. Once I realized that, I relaxed and began to really enjoy hanging out with him. And I found out later that even though I was embarrassed over saying to him that I didn't know about him, it was really a confirmation to him from the Lord. He said that he just wanted me to know if I could be his friend and he didn't want to sway me unfairly romantically or emotionally before it was time. He wanted us to be friends first, and I really really respected that.

I remember learning about him, his life, his family, the choices he's made in life and just realizing how much I respected everything about him, how he loved the Lord, how he loved his family and yeah. I began to realize how great he is. I started to really look forward to seeing him and was disappointed when we couldn't hang out. I remember the day when I told a friend, "I think I like him. (pause) No, I like him."

Things were going well and then in early March, one evening driving home from somewhere in the North Hills, we were both talking just about how great and perfect life was right now and how great the Lord was to us individually. Justin said that he thought one reason life had been great so far for him in 2009, was that I was in his life. We were driving into the Fort Pitt Tunnels and he looked at me and expressed that for him, he felt like things might and could head into courtship and he wanted to know if I felt the same way. I knew enough to know at that time that I wasn't 100% sure, but that I definitely didn't want what we had to end. I wanted to see where it would go and what the Lord would develop from our friendship. We talked for a long time in his car in front of my house. Then, when he walked me up to the door we talked for a while in my entryway. Then he asked to pray for us and I agreed. He told me later that he felt like he was tripping over his words, but to me, it was a beautiful, heartfelt, loving, just perfect prayer. I honestly was blinking away tears at the end. I just felt such peace from the Lord. I floated that entire weekend at work. It was awesome.

So, Justin really wanted to talk with my parents before we officially began to court. I was all in favor of this idea. :)It took another two weeks for us to work out a date we could talk with both sets of parents. And the talks were two weeks away and would be 14 days apart. I truly began to fall for him during this time and I just felt the Lord all over everything. Those 3-4 weeks while we were waiting to talk to my parents were like the longest ever! I honestly liked him so much and just felt like I would EXPLODE if we didn't talk with my parents soon! However, I did not explode and we made it just fine to talking with my parents. Justin was amazing and talked to both sets alone for over an hour each. He's my hero for doing that. Like I've told him numerous times, I did not envy him that job. He said he was excited for it.

The first time we ever touched or held hands was the night that we went to my Dad's and we all joined hands to pray over dinner. All I could think was "oh my gosh, we're holding hands!" lol. We talked to my mom last and the drive back to church to pray was so...awkward and happy. :) We were just beating around the bush and then Justin looked over at me and said something to the effect of "Kristen Lorenze, you are amazing, will you be my girlfriend". I nearly shouted "Yes!" When we arrived to the church, we got out of the car all awkward and we hugged for the first time. That night was also the first time he put his arm around me. And oh my, did it just feel right. I just had this overwhelming sense of the Lord and His peace all over me that night. I was grinning ear from ear.

Since then, we've been hanging out, talking more, holding hands and getting to know each other. We've been just learning how to be relaxed, silly and normal around each other. We are just becoming such great friends and I love it. I love the fact that we can be silly now, because we spent a lot of January-March talking about details about our lives, but also about hard topics. We talked about our views on family, submission, Holy Spirit, Jesus, church, kids, timeline for relationships, the fact that I feel called to have tons of kids and the fact that he feels called to missions. We really tried hard to cover all the things that are and should be "deal breakers" before we were really emotionally attached. And it was great. We had several very rational honest conversations.

I am so grateful to Justin for leading in this and in our relationship, because I feel like I can really enjoy our relationship now, because I know that we share the same views on the really important topics.

And now, he just got to my house. He brought me flowers, gatorade, a movie and Mylanta, lol. He's great. I just think he's wonderful and I am so grateful to the Lord for everything thus far. He is good.