Someone must be getting engaged..

Joel has his six month check up tomorrow. He was supposed to have it on Monday, but his doctor had a death in the family, so it was canceled. When I told Sam this, he said, "someone must be getting engaged".

For us, a doctor's "death of a loved one" and someone getting engaged did go together. I figure after the number of words and the heaviness of my last post, you would probably all appreciate a shorter (that might happen), more picture heavy, more positive post. So obviously, I thought I'd do that by talking about death. I promise this is headed somewhere good...

For a year in college I worked as a receptionist at a doctor's office. It was a small office, so I worked just with one other lady. She was the office manager and had been working with the pediatrician for years and years. She and the doctor and the nurses were all friends and they shared many mutual friends as well. So, when one of their friends passed away, they closed the office for the afternoon so they could all attend the funeral.

Several months later, Sam wanted to take a trip to New York City during Christmas break.


(Our trip to NYC with my family the year before)

We tried to find a day that would work for both of us and it just wasn't coming together. Sam wanted me to take off on a Monday so we could go, but I told him that I couldn't just skip work. I think I'd already missed a day for another reason that week.

On Saturday, I got a voice mail from my boss saying that one of their friends had died and so they were closing the office that Monday. I couldn't believe the timing of that! I was genuinely sad for them, but also just a little excited that I would now be able to go to NYC with my love. I remember running in to tell my mom some version of "God works in mysterious ways" and calling Sam to tell him the news. I also called my boss back to offer my condolences and tell her I was praying for them.

Bright and early Monday morning, Sam and I headed up to NYC. We had lunch together, viewed the World Trade Center site and took a walk to battery park. He had told me he had a surprise for me and his backpack was heavy and huge with some unknown object. We had been talking about getting engaged, so I hoped that's what the surprise was, but I couldn't figure out why he'd have something huge in his backpack. I thought, maybe the surprise is ice skating in Rockefeller Center? (How disappointing would that be.. to think you're getting engaged, when really you're just going ice skating..so I tried not to get my hopes up too much).


(The reason why I thought the surprise might be ice skating. The year before, we'd tried, but it was too crowded.)

When we got to Battery Park, Sam pulled out a blanket. He obviously had a plan for something. Then he pulled out a book he put together for me, which I accidentally opened backwards and saw the page that said "Congratulations", so then I was just a little suspicious. After we read through the book, he got on one knee and asked me to marry him. I of course replied "yes!" right away and then we called our close family and friends.



In the process of telling people about our engagement, I found out that the "death of a friend" was just an excuse for me to be off on that Monday. Apparently, Sam had called my boss a few days earlier and asked her to find a reason for me to be off on Monday. I guess she figured it would be believable that the office was closed for a funeral, since it had happened before and I totally believed her, so I guess it worked!

And the large object in the bag was a 40 pound rock that Sam picked up from the park we went to on our first date.


He carved our names and the bible reference 1 Samuel 7:12, which says, "Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the LORD has helped us.”




So now you know why we connect doctor's, death and people getting engaged.