When me and my now husband were dating, courting etc, we were faced with a whole bunch of challenges. The challenges came from a very unfamiliar place for me. The challenges came from family. Our (the family) thing was for us (the kids) to get married, have kids, make our parents proud grandparents, and all live happily ever after. Celebrating birthdays, holidays and any other days we wanted to because that was the way it was meant to be, that was the way God intended, and that was the way "perfect" families were suppose to do it. So why would I do it any other way? WELLLLLLL I guess I broke the mold. You see I thought the same, you know, get married grow your family, go to church, see your parents at church, visit each other's house, be happy, have more kids, allow your parents to watch your family grow and be so very proud of you........ so on, so on, SO ON!!!! That was actually the way I wanted it to be. Why not? I mean we were sooooo close. If you stopped a stranger on the street and asked him/her if the Brock family was close, the stranger would have said "Yeah!" But something happened. My world turned UPSIDE DOWN.
I love, love, love, my parents, my sisters and my brother. I couldn't EVER imagine not speaking to them for longer than a DAY let alone months.....
They weren't proud of my union, they tried to stop it. It feels kind of strange telling people this, because at first I would just rather no one knew. To protect them and to make it seem like everything was ok. But in order for me to grow and in order to do what God is looking for me to do, which is to help someone else from what I went through, I must tell this. I must tell it truthfully and be transparent in order for healing to transpire.
I was in heaven the day my dad called me and said he was meeting with Bryan Jones!!! I had dreamt of the day when the guy I "liked" (at the time) and my dad could "hang out". Bryan wanted to meet with my dad for "the talk". To tell my dad that he was interested in dating his daughter. Of course he wanted his blessing. I knew of their meeting but for my dad to call me and tell me he was meeting up with Bryan, just made my day. He was so excited and he told me "I think I know what he wants to talk to me about" He went on to say that he had a vision of Bryan and his son and when Bryan called him, he said he knew. You have no idea how happy, I was. As I have said before, I grew up in a strict religious family. I didn't really date (wasn't allowed to) and I would sneak and talk on the phone to boys. Later on in my twenties I would even sneak and meet up with guys. I once was arrested on my way to a guys house to have "Bible study". No,no, no, we actually really were going to have Bible study. BUT it was a good thing I was arrested on my way there. (lol) I mean come on, would you encourage your twenty something year old daughter to have bible study at a guys house... at night? Well now, its no big deal I guess. But the way I was raised, we couldn't even talk to guys on the phone, let a lone BE alone with them ANYWHERE. My parents soon found out when I had to call them to come get me out!! LOL But I'll elaborate on that arrest story later. ANYWAY..... There were also other times when guys would come my church (my parents were pastors) and they would show interest but if my parents didn't like them, they would run the guys off! Most of them they didn't like for me. And just to give them a little credit, a lot of the guys weren't that great for me either. LOL. Now let me try to explain a little bit why we didn't date. In our religion it is our duty to be humble, pure, Holy, and love one another. We do that because it honors God and it's lets Him know that we too, love Him so much ( just like He loves us) that we will separate ourselves from certain things that don't honor Him or His Word ( the Bible). When our parents didn't want us to date, their reason was that they didn't want us with just anybody, passing precious time when we knew that wasn't the person we would marry. The goal is to marry, but before marriage, to refrain from sexual sin. They best way they could help us to do that was to not allow us engage in any frivolous activity with the opposite sex. Mind you this isn't the whole basis of the religion but I just wanted to highlight this particular area because it helped me understand why this may have been one of the reasons they weren't too keen on me and Bryan's friendship... It will get clearer very soon, just ride with me for a minute. Now do I agree with this standard of living? Yes, to a certain extent, the Bible which is what I use to help me with my daily walk with Christ, states to be Holy, to not indulge in fornication or pre marital sex... this is the model I set for myself at a young age. But the choice, the decision has to be yours and yours. My reason was because no one was deserving of all of me, I didn't want to go through the "scare" of diseases, stds... and so on. And there's a lot of emotional crap and soul ties that go along with having a sexual relationship with someone, those craps, I didn't want to deal with. I wanted to stay focused on certain things without other things getting in the way. Anyone else who feels differently is not less loved by God, but if you are a Christian who follows the Bible then this would also be your standard. Sometimes we don't quite do what the Bible says all of the time. I haven't always and frankly I still fall a time or two. That is where God's grace and love for us comes in. As far as being an adult and making the choice and the decision to date while still upholding your standards is something I believe parents should maybe monitor but in all let the adult make the decision. UNLESS there is something major going one (abuse, mental physical etc) But I can talk all day about this and about God's love and how he loves us in-spite of us. So hopefully this small picture I tried to paint about my struggle with the opposite sex growing up gives you a little bit of clarity on what it was like BEFORE Bryan Jones. I was controlled in a way to where if they said it wasn't a good idea, then my opinion didn't really matter because they knew what was best for me. Just letting you or whoever else, know that this style of parenting makes it very difficult for your teenage/young adult children to cope and make decisions on their own.
Hopefully in reading these blogs you will see and began to understand that I'm not saying these things because my life was so horrible and my parent's style of parenting was so horrendous, but I'm allowing you to see how it affected me, good and bad and how I am a better person because of it. I also share how my life was to in turn help other parents, because as parents we don't always know how things are affecting our kids. A lot of times we just want them to do well and succeed and we feel that our way is the best possible way. But it's also important to consider the child. We have to allow them the opportunity to make their choice and not shut it down but allow that choice to be a teaching moment. Guide them through the choice and instruct them if it's a bad decision, without making them feel like their decision is the most horrible in the world. Ok sorry... just having a moment. But like I said, even saying what I just said, that stems from how it was growing up. Now on the other hand, sometimes parents need to put their foot down, say no and leave it at that. There were also times when my parents did that, and it was much needed, and I am so grateful for that. I'll give them this credit, I am great and who I am this day because of them. Don't want it to seem like I'm downing them, but I AM going to be truthful in how their actions made me feel at times. NOW.... where was I? OH OKAY....
SO fast forward a little bit, I'm in my late twenties going on thirty. I had always thought, hoped and wished that I would get married at 25, but that didn't happen. Each year that passed after that, I longed more and more for a male companionship. By age 30 I hadn't seriously dated or courted and I tried hard to encourage myself, read books, and focus on church things. My sisters and I formed a singing and dance group within our church with just the three of us girls and my brother and I just stayed busy doing that and working. I was happy but I didn't feel complete. MIND YOU... you do NOT have to be with anybody to BE complete. I was very complete as a SINGLE person because I was working on myself and getting better with just everything. BUT I did say that I didn't FEEL complete. That was because I wanted a family, heck I wanted a MAN. I hadn't had one!!!! Let me get this ONE thing clear though... I WAS NOT DESPERATE. There is a difference between being desperate and wanting a companion, someone to grow and share with, someone else to give a different kind of love to other than the love you give a family member, someone to hug....NO someone to embrace, someone to laugh with, someone to sleep next to, to cuddle with, someone to tell you you're beautiful with meaning, someone to have fun with, someone to spoil you.....ok you get it. That's wanting a companion, desperate on the other hand is when you drop ALL your standards and do things you may not even want to do, to get something you THINK will make you feel better or make the loneliness go away... There's a reason I'm making this distinction between being just desperate and being ready for love, so keep this in mind as you continue to read my blogs. It's going to come up in a later story.
SO anyway, I got closer to God and I began to understand who I was and how I was being controlled. Now AGAIN just as a disclaimer, my story is not to take a shot at anyone, it's not meant to paint a picture of how horrible it was growing up, and its not to diminish how well my parents raised me. This is to bring awareness, to how God has worked in my life, based on the different challenges I've faced just trying to navigate through life.
With that being said, back to the day my dad called me with the good news. I was happy and we hung up the phone. Later that day me and Bryan met up for dinner. He immediately started to tell me how lunch went with my dad and how my dad gave him his blessing. He said my dad said he was excited and that he reminded him of a younger him. I can't tell ya'll how happy I was. I really liked Bryan and we had been talking for a few weeks. We had already had the talk about us officially dating but we were I guess letting a little time pass by and again we wanted to talk to the parents. So that was that, we were official I guess you could say. He then reached down and pulled out the cutest pink box from underneath the table. It said "love" on the top. He told me to open it. In it were two letters one was a letter promising me of all the things he was going be, how he would treat me, how he adored me... I still have the letters. Until this day, Bryan has always fulfilled his promise and he continues to be who and what he told me he would be. That day I knew, I had found my "companion". I wasn't letting go....
I think this is a good stopping point. Time has been far spent and I feel a whole other six pages coming just from this topic. Thank you so much for reading. Please let me know what you think!!!
(October 28,2020)