Julia and Chris

A Love worth waiting for

How Chris and Julia found each other and

became one  of our Christian Couples

For nine years I was busy being a single parent with two teenage children and working full-time as a teacher.  I was involved in my church and choir, enjoyed my weekly walking group and had lots of good friends and family.  I was quite happy until my son and daughter went to university and the empty nest syndrome hit me.  My daughter was diagnosed with a serious long-term illness and I started to realize that although I was blessed with several very close female friends, I had no partner or soulmate to share things with, and thought it would be nice to meet a kind man to perhaps go out with for a meal or concert, or walking or on holiday.  No expectations of anything more.  A very good Christian friend pointed out the friends first advert in a magazine and said ‘ Look it’s even purple – your favourite colour!’

A few weeks later, after very careful consideration and much prayer, I joined friends first and got my first profiles – 28 men all at once!  Chris was top of my ‘probables’ list, mainly because he was a single parent himself with two daughters, he was committed to his faith and church, and we had several interests in common. He didn’t live too far away either and had a car!  He had a beard too which wasn’t on my list, but I decided I could compromise on that.  I looked at my emails the day after receiving the first lot of profiles and was amazed to find that Chris had already emailed me late the night before! Wow!

We emailed every few days for a couple of weeks and found we had lots more in common:  both been divorced for a long time and our children lived with us, both had a daughter called Alice!, both liked walking in Derbyshire and the Lake District, both had similar tastes in music, been to the same college years previously although not at the same time.  The main difference was that Chris had been searching for a soulmate for a lot longer than me, had met lots of people and was more used to the whole ‘dating’ thing.  He gave me lots of good advice and gently encouraged me, well aware that he was the first person to contact me on friends first.  It was the best £250 I ever spent!  Our first date was in a motorway service station for a coffee.  Not very romantic but safe and easy to find.  We talked for nearly two hours and later arranged to go walking the following weekend in Derbyshire.  I found it much easier than I had expected to talk with Chris and he was very open from the beginning about wanting to meet a true partner to marry eventually.  My expectations were not so high at first, and I was knocked off balance a little by my mother’s sudden death almost as soon as we’d met.  We met again a month later and then went walking in the Peak District as often as we could for the next few months.  A real encouragement for me was that Chris came to church with me and met my many friends there, and my son and daughter, and got on so easily with them all.

After five months we had a wonderful week walking in Anglesey.  I kept thinking that if we could get on, seeing each other all day everyday on holiday then it must be real friendship and started to think about seeing Chris as the partner that God had found for me, exactly as I had needed and prayed about, but that He might mean me to actually marry him!  Then when he couldn’t wait a week longer, Chris proposed to me on a beautiful autumn day on one of my favorite walks in the Lakes seven months after we’d first met.  Praying together had been a part of our relationship from the beginning and I didn’t hesitate for a moment to say yes, knowing that our prayers both together and separately over the years had been answered.

Nine hectic months later we got married on 31st July 2010, in my church where I had been a member for over twenty years.  Our three daughters were bridesmaids and my son walked down the aisle with me.  Many good church friends and family helped with the preparations for the service or took part in it.  We both really enjoyed the day and have been happily married for five months now.  We both feel so thankful to have found someone to share everything with and thank God everyday for so many blessings now we are a Christian couple.