We Dream of This Day From the Time We're Little Girls!!!

Last week was a busy week and at the end of it, I whined to Daniel about not feeling like we had gotten much one-on-one time together. He suggested we spend the day together Monday since we both have Mondays fairly free. I thought it was a great idea!

Little did I know, I walked perfectly in to the plan he had for that day. And my whining just made it all that more natural for him to suggest that we spend the day together.

The plan was to come over around 11 and go to the Botanic Gardens, here in Fort Worth. It's a nice place. We were going to have a picnic, walk around the gardens. We've gone before. Didn't seem too out of the ordinary. So, we get out of the car, spent some leisure time walking around, talking, taking random pictures. He says he wants to walk through the woods, so off we go. As we get off the beaten path, he tells me he wants to tell me a story. The story went something like this:

"Kim, back before we started dating, I came out here to spend some time with God. During that time I was asking Him about you and whether or not I should pursue you. I had some reservations because of your heart for Egypt and my heart for Turkey and I wasn't sure we were going in the same direction. So, I asked the Lord. I didn't want to pursue you unless this was going to be from Him. I felt as clear as I'd ever felt before that the Lord spoke to me at that time and said, 'Daniel, you're not expecting to hear from me. You're expecting to come here, talk with me about this, and feel peace that you've done so, but you're not really expecting to hear from me.' I thought for a minute. He was right. I guess I wasn't. Then He continued, almost like a dare and said, 'Go ahead, ask Me anything and see if I'll answer you.' So, I thought I'd swing for the fences. I asked, 'God, is she the one I'll spend my life with?' And I closed my eyes and got this sense of God smiling down on me and heard this resounding, 'YES!' I sat there for a minute, kind of expecting my mind to talk me out of all of this, but there was nothing. Nothing but peace."

As he got to this part of the story, we were walking up to a fallen tree limb that had made a natural bench in the middle of the woods. We sat down there, and he continued, "That was the day that we had the teachers' meeting at Catholic Charities." That evening before we left the meeting Daniel and I were talking and he was holding a big acorn. Before we were leaving he made a comment about the big acorns he had seen that day at the gardens. He non-chalantly said, "Do you want this?" and handed me the acorn. I took it, put it in the cup holder in my car and to this day, the acorn sits in my car. Several times I've looked at it and laughed, thinking, "Why in the world have I kept this acorn?" I've thought about trashing it on days when I've cleaned out my car, but I never have. So, yesterday as we sat on the log, Daniel continued by saying,

"I've never told you this story before and I thought that it would be appropriate to bring you here and tell you this story." He then reached down, picked an acorn up from off of the ground, got down on one knee in front of me, opened up the acorn and I sat there, my face painted with a huge smile, as I my eyes glanced back and forth from his face to his hands which were holding a cotton-stuffed acorn with a beautiful diamond ring setting inside, and listening to him say, "Kim, I have one chance to be the most outrageously happy man in the world, so I'm taking it now. Kimberly Ann Hood, will you marry me?"

My response was, "Of course I will!!!" And there came Joshua, his brother, running out of the woods with a dozen roses and a poem Daniel had written me in one hand and a camera in the other. (He had been the guardian of the ring while Daniel and I walked around the gardens, protecting the ring from any anxious squirrel who might have scurried off with it!!!)

What a GREAT day!!!