I am absolutely honored and moved to share this week's Graceful Women Series with you this Valentine's Day, friends. The precious writer is an amazing woman you just must know and follow. Her story and love story is truly one of the most poignant stories I've ever heard in all my life and it's one of two stories (in all my years) that I've been impacted by so powerfully -- her love story is one of the most beautiful of all time and her heart for her darling love Nathan, her daughter, and her Hope is absolutely breathtaking. Today I'm sharing Part One of beautiful Jen Farlow's story and heartfelt writing. I know her words will stir and touch your heart as it has so powerfully in mine. Please take a moment to follow this precious mama (her links are below!), she is truly the embodiment of a strong, beautiful, graceful woman.

_________________________

My Love, My Valentine

by Jen Farlow

Even if the sun refused to shine

Even if romance ran out of rhyme

You would still have my heart

Until the end of time.

- Jim Brickman –

Every girl dreams of finding her Prince Charming, and I was certainly no exception. My earliest childhood recollections are steeped in hopes and dreams of finding The One. Would it be a chance encounter, a deep soul knowledge the moment our eyes met? Or would we be childhood best friends, drifting softly into an unlikely romance? Would he be handsome, dashing, dangerous, ordinary? A rebel? The boy next door? My imaginings ran wild – evidenced even at five years old when I wrote in my first diary with huge, sprawling letters: “When I grow up, I want to marry *insert name of my first crush* and live on a farm with six dogs, three horses, and four cats.”

As I got older I fell for various boys with increasing intensity. I read dozens of novels and roamed our secluded back yard for hours, spinning elaborate castles in the air filled with children and pets, captained by whoever I was enamored with at the time. Mercifully, none of the boys in question ever knew how hard I fell for them and how devastated I was when they didn’t appear to notice or return my interest. My one-sided love affairs were harmless enough, and as I got ready to graduate high school they were replaced by dreams of an illustrious journalism career. My air castles were traded in for dreams of traveling the world as a daring war correspondent, dodging bombs and air raids and perhaps falling in love with a wounded soldier after I’d pocketed a Pulitzer.

What I hadn’t counted on was that my very own Prince Charming would show up at my front door on Valentine’s Day 2006. I was seventeen and hosting a houseful of fellow students at our weekly youth group meeting, and bounded to open the door when the doorbell rang for the dozenth time. A visiting Baptist preacher from North Carolina stood on the porch with his two tall sons and wide-eyed daughter. I locked eyes with the older son, and my breath caught. Nathan Farlow was dark-haired and Southern, with eyes like the sea, a perpetual tan and the lithe body of an all-American athlete. He wore the widest and whitest smile I’d ever seen, and it seemed to never leave his face – his personal invitation to the whole world to stop a minute and get to know him. We quickly discovered our shared loved for country music, and spent most of that spring on the phone for hours – discussing school projects, driving tests, college applications, faith, politics, and our dreams for the future. We were sworn best friends and nothing more, but my visions of a Pulitzer threatened to be replaced by dreams of becoming Mrs. Nathan Farlow one day. With each conversation my conviction deepened that he was everything on my list of future husband qualities, plus so much more I’d never thought to add.

When Nathan skipped a family wedding to attend my high school graduation, adrenaline pumped thick and hot through my veins. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was about to turn into something real – something I’d waited for my whole life. Late that night, as the last party guests left for home, Nathan and my dad disappeared for a mysterious conversation. Dad gave him permission to express his feelings for me, and Nathan – knowing full well that we were each leaving for four years at our respective colleges – asked me to be his girlfriend. Before we’d ever met we had each pledged not to casually date around, but to save ourselves for a relationship that could potentially lead to marriage. The very commitment to a long-distance courtship felt almost as weighty as an engagement.

Within mere months of officially dating we were convinced that we could never marry anyone else, and the four years stretching ahead of us seemed an eternity to wait. But, like Jacob, so blinded by his love for Rachel that the seven years he worked for her felt like mere days, we would have waited forever for each other. Because we’d committed to physical purity before marriage, we paced our physical intimacy as slowly as we possibly could. We waited one year to hold hands, two years to say I love you, three years – and engagement! – to kiss. Some may have called us prudish, or sexually stifled. Quite the contrary. Our physical boundaries gave us ample time to deepen our friendship, an unshakeable foundation for a healthy relationship that did not ebb and flow with mere physical connection and attraction. We were soulmates, best friends, and kindred spirits, and our physical boundaries, though frustrating, were a blessing that kept us from compromising in areas that we would one day regret. Each stage of physical intimacy was indescribably beautiful and fulfilling, because we had waited and, as Solomon urged, “not awakened love before its time.”

Nathan, my prince, my knight in shining armor, married me on June 20, 2010. I walked down the aisle towards that dazzling smile in a puddle of relieved tears. All those girlish dreams and imaginings had led me on a pathway straight to him…only him. There could never be anyone else. He was the perfect fulfillment of each and every one of my longings, handcrafted by a loving God just for me, and I for him. We said “I do,” and our kiss was one of almost ethereal bliss. We were finally, at long last, home.

I do not exaggerate when I say that the following four years of marriage were a taste of heaven on earth. The long years of loving, learning, fighting, and waiting for each other had primed us for a fairytale marriage. It was such an indescribable relief to wake up together, knowing that we would never have to say goodbye again. I kept waiting for the difficulty of marriage to hit. Everyone always cautioned about “when the honeymoon ended.” For me, it never did. Even going to the bank or the gas station was a thrill because it meant I got to be with him. Every day with him was the new best day of my life. I couldn’t imagine it ever getting better. The only thing that marred my perfect happiness was a nagging twinge of foreboding that it was too good. This level of perfection seemed unattainable for the long run. Would something happen somewhere along the way to mess it all up?

~*~

On October 5, 2014, I am nursing our three-week-old daughter, Elissa Rose, in our bed. It is early morning, and I’d woken up to a text that Nathan had sent several hours before that he had finished night shift at work and was heading home early. I’m in a fog of sleepless new-motherhood, but something does not feel right. He should have been home long before now. I rationalize. Maybe he stopped on an errand, got stuck in traffic. (At 5 a.m. on a Sunday?) He’s fine, I assure myself. If something had happened there would be someone at my door.

And the instant the thought crosses my mind, there is a loud knock at the front door.

Stay Tuned for Part Two, Next Wednesday

Connect with the Writer:

Jen Farlow

Blog: www.jenniferfarlow.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jen_farlow/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/jen.farlow.3

Email: jen.a.farlow@gmail.com

Graceful Women: "My Love, My Valentine" by Jen Farlow (Part One)