Our Story (Anna + Ryutaro)
The summer after my first year of graduate school in occupational therapy, I had decided to stay up in Grand Forks, ND to nanny for a family in town. It was going to be my first summer in Grand Forks that I would not be drowning in Anatomy lab exams, so I sought out a way to get more involved in my little community. There is a coffee shop in town, The Ember, that I had been going to since I was a freshman in college. The Ember is a non-profit and is run primarily by volunteer baristas so that they can give back to the community. It has always been my favorite place in town, so when the owners, Josh and Mary, asked me to volunteer, I jumped at the opportunity.
Ryutaro had been volunteering at The Ember for 3 years by the time I started, so he trained me in a bit. We had mutual friends and had seen one another around town, even introducing ourselves once (although I could never remember his name!) but we really didn't know each other until we started serving coffee together. One of the shifts we worked together was incredibly slow, leaving us with nearly 4 hours of silence to fill up with forced conversation. If you know Ryutaro (or me...) you can understand that filling silence wasn't much of an issue. A conversation that probably started out as, "What do you think of vanilla lattes?" soon turned into a philosophical and theological conversation (you can probably guess who led it in that direction).
A week later, Ryutaro called me to ask if I would go get sushi with him the next week. This was in December.
At this point, my only thoughts were, "Okay, this guy is nice. He loves the Lord. He likes sushi...I think I should go." At this point in time, I was overwhelmed with school, sick of guys, and probably way too busy to be thinking about going on a date, but I went.
And it was the best date of my life.
Ryutaro picked me up, took me out to the best sushi place in town, drove us to a Christmas lights display, and then reserved The Ember after hours for a private coffee date. It was wonderful. Absolutely amazing. And I had no idea what to do with it. He was clearly all-in! Or at least, that was my interpretation. I was so scared! So, despite having the greatest date of my life, on the next date,
I friend-zoned him.
Looking back, we both agree that the time that Ryutaro spent in the "friend-zone" was valuable for both of us. For me, I was able to refocus on my school work and work with God on what was holding me back from allowing myself to be cared about in the way that Ryutaro tried to care for me. And for Ryutaro, he was able to grow closer to the Lord and read up on nearly every dating and singleness book that has ever been reviewed by the team at desiringgod.com, because that's just kind of his thing. Yeah, we know we're weird. It's okay.
A couple of months later, Ryutaro and I ran into each other at a mutual friend's house. I, being the sometimes too-blunt-for-my-own-good self, made some sort of comment about Ryutaro and I going on a date and it not working out, in front of a too-large-for-that-kind-of-comment group. What Ryutaro did next was exactly what I deserved. He gathered an even larger group and announced, "Attention! Attention! There are some people who believe that once you are in the friend zone, you must stay in the friend zone. I however, believe that you can get out of the friend zone!
And that is what I intend to do with Anna."
Oh wow. What does a person do with that? Well first, get super red in the face and a little mad. Then you do a lot of reflecting. I pulled Ryutaro aside the next day (we ran into each other at The Ember, go figure) and asked him what he wanted me to do with the information he so kindly shared with all of our friends the night before. That is when Ryutaro taught me the greatest lesson I have learned in my life thus far. He responded,
"I don't feel like you gave me a chance to get to know you. You went on the date, but you weren't really there. I am not asking that you fall in love with me right now. I am not even asking for you to like me. I simply want permission to use some of your time in order to get to know you. Don't worry about breaking my heart. That's not your job. I am choosing to put myself out there and I am trusting the Lord that He will protect me if nothing comes from this. I just want permission to pursue you."
And so we went on another date. And another one. And another. The whole time, Ryutaro taught me what it means to be vulnerable. He taught what it means to really open up and allow another into all of the messy and beautiful parts of me. He showed me that loving is not a response to being loved by the other person, but a response to being loved by our Heavenly Father. I did not earn Ryutaro's love, yet he chose to love me.
How much more does the Lord do this for us? I realized that I often view God's desire to have a relationship with me in the same way I first viewed Ryutaro's desire to get to know me. I feel as though I need to be totally in love with God before drawing close to Him. I feel as though I need to have a stress-free, perfect life, with an abundance of time, before agreeing to surrender any time to Him. All the while, God simply wants me. And by allowing Him to love me, I learn how to love all the more.
We are so grateful for all that God has taught us. We are confident that we have gotten to understand His character better together than we ever could apart.
Pre-Engagement/ The Engagement:
When Ryutaro and I first started even talking about dating, we both expressed the desire to date with the intention of marriage. To us, this meant being very intentional in the questions that we asked one another, bringing our friends, families, mentors, and pastors in on our relationship, and seeking the Lord and His timing in every step. We knew that this process would be scary at times (being vulnerable is never fun) but that the outcomes would be rewarding. If we began to get to know one another and discovered "red flags," we would do so quickly, before our hearts were bonded by time and familiarity. If we sought out the Lord's will for our relationship, loved what we learned about one another, and got the A-okay from our friends and family, we would move forward.
Months had passed and we enjoyed goofing around (I have never laughed with someone more) and getting to know one another more and more. We went on adventures, took on new hobbies, and he even visited me in Arizona! We racked up a gazillion minutes on skype when we were living apart, and we learned to do distance. We spent time with my family at the cabin and Ryutaro was introduced to all things Minnesota life. I turned him into a lake-lover, which is quite a feat for a guy who grew up on an island. We learned about what we loved and what we wanted out of life. We both want to be missionaries, whether formally or informally, or in the US or elsewhere. We both want to seek adventure. God made us passionate about similar causes.
God made it clear to us that it was time to be engaged. This wasn't made clear to us in the way "everything fell into place" or in the way that "we just felt it." It was clear to us in the way that we were growing in our relationship with one another and with God. We had been tested many times (international issues are not ideal right now...but that's another thing...) and had even worried about the possibility of Ryutaro getting sent back to Japan for a period of time, so clearly, things were not "falling into place." However, God pulled us closer to Himself in those trials and we grew in ways we never would have otherwise. He showed me, specifically, that being a Christian does not mean that I am guaranteed an easy life. In fact, God tells us many times through the Bible that we are guaranteed the exact opposite.
"Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name." 1 Peter 4:12
However, He does guarantee that He will be present with us and that His glory will be revealed! He has answered our prayers faithfully and shown Himself to be sovereign and beautiful in His Word and in our lives. He showed us in the way he brought Ryutaro closer and closer together, even in tough times!
Around the time that we began feeling God's calling for us to move toward engagement, Ryutaro made a mysterious weekend trip to Minneapolis... I had a hunch that he would be talking to my parents, but he, of course, denied it.
And then, one evening, Ryutaro asked me if he could come over to bring me a letter. He had a written a letter to me every month that we had been dating. I always looked forward to getting the letters that often came accompanied with a sketch of a city or a random something or another. They recapped the month's events and outlined Ryutaro's feelings and thoughts. Of course, I told him he could swing by, but it was late, so he couldn't stay long.
Well, Ryutaro came over. He swung the door open to my apartment and announced, "We're going on and adventure!" At that point, I thought something seemed suspicious.
He drove me around to a couple of our favorite spots in town and we talked about all of the memories that we made. Finally, he blindfolded me and brought me to the Ember, where we met. Inside, he made me my favorite tea and we chatted. He handed me the letter for the month. I couldn't wait, secretly thinking that he had written his proposal inside. When I opened it, it was blank! He explained that this month wasn't over yet and that the rest of the story needed to be written....
That is when he led me upstairs, where he had set up a table filled with candles. It was beautiful. On that table, he laid out all of the letters he had written for me and propped up every picture that he had sketched for me. How he found them, I wasn't sure. He asked me to label each of the pictures...
Minneapolis
Followed
by Arizona
And then
Raleigh...
When it was all said and done, it spelled out, "Anna, will you marry me?"
He got down on one knee and proposed. I said yes.
It is, and
will forever be, my greatest decision.
Gosh, I
love that man.
