Meant To Be

The way we ended up together is a pretty cool story that we love to share!

He was married and had a 2-year-old son when he received orders for his first deployment to Iraq. While he physically survived his deployment, he came home after a year overseas to learn that his marriage did not. After the divorce he poured his energy into bettering himself and his son's future. He promoted in his career to reach the rank of Major. He was the commander of his aviation unit, and he loved spending his days flying helicopters. Then on August 9, 2006, his entire world changed. While flying a joint mission stateside with the DEA and Arkansas State Police, his engine failed. He had experienced engine failure before and was able to land the aircraft safely, but this time nothing he did to ease the fall worked. He and his passenger crashed to the ground at an estimated 15G (which is crazy hard)! He shattered his vertebrae and was immediately paralyzed and trapped inside the aircraft. His fuel tank was full, and he knew he would burn alive stuck in that mangled aircraft if he didn't bleed out internally first. It took nearly an hour for help to arrive. By the grace of God, that helicopter never caught fire that day. He and his passenger were airlifted to two separate hospitals in Northwest Arkansas.

I was in graduate school at the University of Arkansas at the time. In the middle of a long study day, one of my friends called me. He was a state trooper who had been on the ground crew, and he told me about the crash. He said he would be flying over to my area with a pilot, and he asked if I could pick them up at the airport and take them to the hospitals to see the men. I welcomed the study break and was eager to go.

As we walked in the passenger's room he went on and on about the amazing pilot with whom he was flying. He was so thankful for such an experienced pilot who handled the entire situation with extreme calm and professionalism. He credited him for being alive. Then we went to the pilot's hospital. Before we walked in I was told that he had not yet been told he would never walk again. We entered the room, and I remember having to control myself from gasping because of how cute I thought he was. His personality while we were there made him even cuter, and I left wanting to know him better. My friend told me he had a girlfriend, so I begrudgingly stayed away from further contacting him.

I thought about him a lot over the next 2 years. My mom would ask me from time to time what happened to him, and I just replied that I assumed he was married to the girl he had been dating (because I had learned through my detective work that she had gotten married... obviously I wasn't too good of a detective since I didn't find out who her new husband was).

I opened a personal training studio in my hometown. I loved working with people with diseases and disabilities! It is so rewarding to see a client overcome depression through exercise or get off blood pressure meds they've taken for 30+ years because of exercise! But I felt like my true calling was to work with women in some capacity to improve their self-esteem, feelings of self-worth, and quality of life.

One day I had a client tell me she would love to introduce me to her best friend's brother. She went on and on about how much we had in common (he was very outdoorsy, family oriented, loved sports and fitness, Christian, loved dogs, etc.), but he couldn't do some of the things he used to do because he was in a helicopter crash and broke his back. She said he learned to walk again, but he still struggled with some physical activities. I began to ask questions about the crash. The more she shared, the more familiar it sounded. Soon we learned it was the same pilot I had visited in the hospital 2.5 years prior. I was SO excited!!!! I couldn't wait to meet him!!!!

We connected through Myspace and Facebook, began talking on the phone, and eventually met in person for a day on the lake. That night we had our first kiss, and I swear the entire time all I could hear was the Darius Rucker song playing in my head "History in the Making" where he says "Baby, this could be our last first kiss." And guess what! It was!!! We were engaged less than 3 months later, and we were married 7 months after that! And you want to know what song the band sang for our first dance? You guessed it! Darius Rucker's "History in the Making"!

The story gets even crazier! That friend of mine who I drove to the hospital that day... he had emailed me pictures at various times a couple years prior when I was living on my own in Florida. It was kind of his way to make me feel a piece of home while I was away. He often sent pictures of himself with the pilot he always flew with. Want to know who that pilot was? My future husband! And we never had a clue until we were dating years later.

I had also gone to visit that friend while they were out on this mission during their evening downtime only a few days before the crash. Guess who was sitting around the pool and remembers seeing some girl come by to go have pizza with that friend? You guessed it! My future husband!

But this is the craziest of crazy.... During our pre-dating time of talking on the phone, he asked me if I was on eHarmony. I told him I had an account, but I didn't know if it was even active anymore because I didn't use it. I told him it was matching me up with guys from far away, so I gave up on it. He said he had decided to try it out recently, and it matched him up with a girl with my name from my hometown. So I hopped online, did my password retrieval to get on there, and low and behold... there was my future husband as a strong match for me!

So we have no doubt that God intended for us to be together. We hope that when we get to heaven we get to see a highlight reel of all the times God tried to connect us, but we were just to stubborn, set in our ways, or living life outside of His will to see it. Thank goodness for His persistence, though, because we can't imagine our lives any other way!