{ The Fields Family }

 

June 2, 2007 marked the day that I went from being a Diehl (a BIG deal, deal the cards, dill pickle) to Mrs. Fields (and yes, I can bake cookies)!  It was the day that I believed would never come.  In fact, the year before, I had given up on my dream of getting married and set my heart on being a single missionary for the rest of my life.  The summers of 2004 and 2005 I was blessed to get to go to Ukraine to help out with a 2 week camp for street kids and orphans.  My eyes were opened to the truth that I wasn't the only one looking for love.  I had been saving this special love for my future husband and God showed me that there were people He had put in my life that could use some of that love I had in my heart to give, like those Ukrainian kids I had the privilege of meeting, my parents whom I was still living with, and my dear friends, especially my single sisters.  So I figured if getting married and starting a family wasn't in the plans for me, then I'd be a "mother" to orphans.

January 2006 was looking pretty exciting with several travel plans for that year.  I was hoping to get to go back to Ukraine that summer for another camp and potential plans were being made to take a trip to Belarus where I'd get to meet some friends I served with at camp the summers of 2004 and 2005.  I was even hoping to get to go to the U.K. to visit a close friend and mentor of mine and squeeze in a day trip to London with another friend where I'd meet up with a Dutch friend I had gotten to know online.  But as the months rolled by, my adventurous plans seemed to be falling through and excitement was giving way to discouragement.  But God was preparing me for what He had planned.  In time I would discover that my plans for the adventurous single life were coming up against closed doors because God had someone He wanted me to meet.  That someone was a guy from Texas who "met" me on MySpace when he did a search for "Christianity."  This blog entry came up in Gregg's search results the night of March 26, 2006 and after reading it, came to the conclusion that we were like-minded.  He had just become a Christian in January and was looking for some other Christians he could freely share his faith with without having to defend it or get into debates.  So he sent me a friend request over MySpace with a message.  [laughs] My reply the next morning was:

Yeah, it's nice and encouraging to be able to find others who are like-minded...

Well, okay [laughs] I kinda have a friends rule.  I honestly started a MySpace account to find all the people I know and stay in touch with them.  I have a few exceptions on my friend list of people I haven't met.  You are, however, one of the first Christians I don't know who want to be my friend kinda for fellowship, I'm assuming.  So if you end up keeping in touch with me, that's cool.  But people I don't know, who I choose to add, and then don't even end up keeping in touch, I delete.  [laughs] Sorry, that's just the way I've decided to do it.  I'm not interested in the number of friends I have.

[laughs] Can we say "jaded?"  Yeah, I had been through the relationship wringer a few times and was even cynical at this point toward guys coming around claiming to be Christians.  I was tired of judging from what I saw on the outside.  Outward appearances had fooled me before.  Remembering that it said somewhere in the Bible that God sees the heart, I prayed that God would reveal to me what Gregg's true character was.  I didn't care that he was claiming to be a Christian or that his MySpace profile seemed to be advertising the same.  God knew the true Gregg and He could expose him if there was anything he was hiding.

Well, it turns out he was for real.  God backed Gregg up and proved his character to be true to me and to those who were looking out for my best.  And what shone the most from Gregg's character was his Christ-like love.  It came out when his sister called during our phone conversation, and even though he was enjoying talking to me, told me he had to go because she was going through a tough time and he wanted to be available to her.  It came out when he told me I wouldn't hear from him for about a week because his mom was going through surgery and he was going to take care of her while she recovered.  It came out when he felt strongly about not kissing me until our wedding day because he wanted to keep our relationship pure of self gratification.  And I especially saw it through his tender heart and gracious responses to all the ugliness that came out of me due to the baggage I was carrying from past relationships or from being just plain ol' selfish.

 He was the one God had planned for me.  My dream became realized and my wedding day marked the first of many Fields' days to come!

Leala's & Adella's Stories to Come...