Part 2- Our Love Story

You don’t want to miss Part 1- Our Love Story. Click here to read it!

Before I can really continue my story I need to give you a little background of my childhood.

My parents were very very conservative, I always say I was raised a mixed religion, a little bit Baptist, a little bit Mennonite, a little bit Messianic Jew (although we aren’t Jewish). We kept the Old Testament Laws and feast, the girls wore dresses and headcoverings, part of my life we had “home church” and for a short time we attended a Baptist Church. My parents taught us the meaning of salvation at an early age, and for that I am so grateful.

I was homeschooled along with my 7 brothers and one sister. While my dad raised us the way he believed was the best way there were a lot of issues inside our family. There was a lot of mental abuse and control in our home. My dad arranged my sister and oldest brother’s marriage. He fully expected to do the same for me. Even though my two older sibling’s arranged marriages are still successful marriages to this day, I knew at an early age that I did NOT want my dad picking out my husband. I always hopped I could get his approval/blessing but I was never one to follow the rules very well.

At age 17 I had left home and for the first time I put on a pair of jeans and took off my headcovering. It really shook up my parents when I left and my dads heart softened some. After being in different siblings homes for around 7 months, my parents and I were finally able to meet at some common ground and agree to disagree on a lot of things. I always had a heart to respect my parents belief, I never wanted to push stuff in their face even if I disagreed with them. So I moved back home and tried my hardest to please my parents as much as I could. Basic things like dress and church I made my own decisions on.

In the relationship with my ex-boyfriend my parents had some part in it, while they would have liked to have many more rules involved they tried their hardest to be supportive.

My parents and most of my siblings met Ash the same weekend that I met him. My brothers saw right away that Ash was attracted to me and they, being brother, teased me about him. Actually, my brothers did not like my ex-boyfriend, and they even said, “Why don’t you leave him and go with someone like Ash.” I was a little hurt by that at the time but later in my story my brothers would eat those words.

So when Ash and I started to chat I had told my brothers and parents, but no one really knew if it was just a friendship or more.

Now to pick up from where I left off last time….

“Ash is in jail and was going to prison, he wants to know if you will write him”

I was shocked. Jail? Prison? How did this happen? How long did he have to serve time? Who was I getting myself involved with? What would my family say?

I knew better on that last question… I vaguely told my family what was going on and told them I was going to write Ash while he was in jail. He was sentenced to 10 years, and possible parole for good behavior after the first year. I am sure my parents felt like that was a dead end for anything beyond a friendship right then.

I sent him a letter right away, just hopping to cheer him up. Up until that point I had never met anyone who had been to jail/prison other than a few people my parents had tried to help out that would go in and out of jail for drugs/or robbery. So basically I never ever imagined I would ever be interested in someone with a record. But time and time again in my story, I would ask myself why was I so drawn to Ash, someone who I had only met once and yet I could not forget about. I had a few other guy friends that tried to show me they were interested in a relationship during that year, but I would pray about them and every time I would see Ash’s face and I just couldn’t encourage a future relationship with anyone else.

I had been working as a caretaker for a 90 year old lady so I had been saving up (for what I thought was going to be my wedding) my heart was still hurt from my break up and my parents encouraged me to go on a 2 week mission trip to Mexico and help a ol’ family friend who was teaching English to first graders. I loved to travel and so I decided to get my passport and make it happen. It was a wonderful way to get my mind off my own sadness, and see people who live in homes of cardboard and skids, still be able to smile. While I was in Mexico I continued to write Ash. He was constantly on my mind, he was a 20 year old outgoing adventurous guy, locked up in a county jail and not even being able to go outside for days. When I got back from Mexico I got a few letters from Ash. He seemed to be doing ok, and we wrote about once a week.

Since I went to work every day I would grab the family mail on my way home so normally I was the first one to see the letters from Ash. However, one day I guess my dad got the mail and in it was a letter postmarked from the county jail, addressed to me. I don’t understand why to this day my dad felt he had a right to open my letters but he did, and that letter just happened to be a really serious one from Ash. In in he told me how he felt about me and was asking if I felt the same about him, He also said if I did feel the same about him that he wanted to contact my dad so he could start things out right.

If you can let your imagination run wild for a minute I am sure you can guess how my dad responded to that. He was waiting for me when I got home from work and he handed me the opened letter. Well at that moment I decided that since my dad had already involved himself and since Ash was in jail it wasn’t like our relationship could move forward or anything so maybe this would be a good time for my dad and Ash to write and get to know each other. What did I have to lose? So I told my dad I would not write Ash any more until he got a chance to get to know Ash for himself.

That was hard, for me to sit back and let my dad take over. I knew how my dad could be and I was worried. But like I said, I kinda just wanted to see how it all played out because he was in jail and its not like we could date at that time or anything.

Ash sent my dad a letter very nicely written and asked if he could have his permission to write me. Dad replied that he wanted to get to know him, and continued to ask Ash all sorts of questions about the old testament and “what was the first covenant that God made with Abraham” and “What in Ash’s opinion was a fathers role in protecting his daughter”. My dad wasn’t interested in getting to know Ash, all he was really interested in was discussing doctrine and theology.

After a few letters back and forth Ash caught on to my dads game and he realized that this wasn’t going anywhere. He stopped writing and decided he would wait till he got out. Meanwhile I continued to write letters to him, just not sending them. I had no idea but he was also doing the same.

He was in jail for 3 months and then they moved him to prison. There were so many way that God protected Ash during that time. The stories that people made up about Ash made his time very dangerous in prion. There were a few men in prion that stood up for Ash and told other inmates that if they laid a finger on Ash they would defend him. I believe to this day that they were God’s angels.

God gave that small town, homeschooled 20 year old guy, wisdom and safety through it all. Fast forward till the following year … There were a lot of unsent letters and I still could not forget about this guy who I had only met once and honestly sometimes I questioned my own sanity, why was I waiting on this guy, I knew a relationship with him wouldn’t be a easy thing. All I can say is that God wouldn’t take him off my mind. We were meant for each other.

But our story was hardly over…. no, we are still just at the beginning here.

TO BE CONTENUED……