My parents have been married 50 years and I wanted to experience the love that I would see them share.  This comparison also made me critical of any potential relationship I would have.  I wanted to guarantee “staying power”, which is not something I could control.  I was fighting the idea of a relationship, let alone marriage, for a long time.  As Nicole & I spent time together, I could tell she was a great woman for someone, but was she good for me?

When we met, Nicole & I were both very busy in our individual lives.  I was working two jobs, and when I wasn't working, my time was devoted to my daughter.  Nicole was raising two daughters, working, in school part time, & clocking a lot of hours serving in her church.  It was tough for us to find time for each other, but when we did, it was refreshing.  Nicole never made me feel like my schedule was an inconvenience and she always made me feel like my time had value. That meant a lot to me.

Here's where she really broke through my shell: She invited my daughter and I to come to DC with her and her daughters.  She planned everything and just told us to show up.  It was the first time we all spent time together & we had a ball.  Knowing that all she wanted to do was show my daughter and I a good time changed how I saw her.  This wasn’t just some beautiful woman who liked going out with me.  She wanted to invest in me and more importantly, in my daughter.

“This is bigger than the both of us.” That’s how I tend to respond to Nicole the many times we’ve sat back in awe of how we made it so far, despite how hard we both fought against it. Every rule I had for relationships or things I was against doing when it came to a woman, I would break for Nicole.  I can’t explain why I would willingly allow her to push my envelope. How is it that we’d been in the same rooms many times before we met without so much as glancing at each other?  How is it that two people who were not looking for anything resembling a relationship end up building such a bond that their names become synonymous to those around them?  Nothing about our origin story made sense in the moment, but God moves us in ways we could never fully understand. 

Looking back, I can see that Nicole came into my life to pull me away from my comfort zone, allowing me to grow in the process.  She never made me compromise my principles and continued to push for me to experience life as I desired but never fully allowed for myself.  My life with her has elevated me to be better as a person and a man. Even though I may be resistant to change at times and fear the consequences of the unknown, she’s never made me feel alone in the journey and that helped me see past my “hang-ups”.  

As the southern/city girl she is, we rarely move at the same pace, but she’s been quite patient with me.  I needed to take the time necessary to feel that this was the type of person with whom I could continue to talk, listen, laugh, cry, and build a life. She gave me the freedom, confidence & safe space to be the man I wanted to present to a wife, and for that I knew I could choose her. Her ability to challenge who I was, support who I’ve become, love, and pray me through it all, is why I not only wanted her to be, but I needed her to be Mrs. Thomas.