Chantelle and I

Hey there folks,

So some of you know that I've started courting an awesome girl and I just wanted to share the story of how it has happened.

So here's the story. Back in early Feb, Chantelle and I talked about a relationship and we both agreed that a relationship right then wouldn't be a good idea. I was still thinking that I might be moving elsewhere (like the east coast) and Chantelle still had a wound in her heart that she needed to have healed so we decided to just remain friends and see each other as brother/sister. After a couple more months of hanging out, Chantelle approached me (2 weeks ago tomorrow) and asked me if I still saw her as a sister because, after the Lord healed her old wounds, she found that her feelings for me had started to grow, quite unexpectedly. I guess she spoke to her mom about it and told her that she really wasn't expecting or trying to have her feelings grow. So yeah, we had a talk 2 weeks ago and I said that I'd be praying about it, because i didn't want to dive into something like i always do. The Atlantic thing didn't work out for me at all and I haven't been able to move anywhere else out-of-province and it felt like I was supposed to just let that go into the Lord's hands anyways, so that helped my decision. I then spoke to my very good friends, Jay and Cherelle, about it asking what they thought on the matter. They had some good input and Jay suggested that I fast for a day, so I did. The more i prayed, the more at peace I was feeling about it, but one thing kept popping up; the fact that I didn't feel like i needed to be with her. In the past, I've needed to be with my girlfriends to find happiness, but with Chantelle, I found that I didn't NEED to be with her to find it. So that was kind of freaking me out because i wasn't sure if I really liked her, but then I asked the Lord what He thought of the matter and He set me straight. He basically asked me "Well, do you want to be with Chantelle?" I said yes, and then He said something else that was pretty profound "Then that's enough. It's not healthy to NEED to be with her Greg; it's very healthy to WANT to be with her despite the fact that you are not drawing your happiness and joy from her." So once He told me that, I was really at peace with the idea. After that the Lord then impressed it upon me to talk to her parents, so last Friday we sat down and had a little discussion in which I asked for their blessing to court their daughter and they asked me a few questions about what that meant and what my plans were as she pursued her dreams. So after our little discussion, they gave me their blessing and prayed for me, and that's how Chantelle and I started our courtship.

Anyways, after a few days I finally had the time to call another good friend of mine, Kenton, and he had something more for me about this matter with the whole not needing, but wanting to be with her. In essence, it's like God's relationship with us; He's not completed by being in a relationship with us and he doesn't need us, but He still desires and wants to be in a relationship with us. I know I don't NEED Chantelle to be happy, but I really WANT to share my joy and my life with her because she is such an amazing person...
Anyways, that's how it all started. It's been pretty neat how this has all unfolded, and especially neat how we were just friends for about a year and good friends for a little over half a year; it gave us the chance to just be ourselves around each other and not throw on any masks, something that has continued to occur in our courtship... the honesty that is.

So yeah, I hope you are encouraged by reading this, it has been pretty cool so far for us!

I should get to bed now.
TTYL!
YFTCF
Greg