my beloved
by Lorena Pinal |
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Lorena and her husband Eric will celebrate their twentieth anniversary this September. They've been blessed with four daughters ages, 17, 15, 11 and 9. Lorena enjoys reading inspiring books, chocolate, and laughing with her family. Lorena and Eric have been Mosaic marriage counselors for the past 8 years. | |  |
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"I can't believe Jonathon just married someone else!" I sobbed into my friend Eric's shoulder. "My marriage to him was supposed to be this year! Why did God allow our engagement to be broken? Why did He allow Jonathon to hurt me like this?"
Eric wasn't sure what to say; he had only been a Christian for a few months himself. But he did a great job of listening and encouraging me. If it wasn't for his support and that of my friend Christina's, I don't know how I would have survived my grief over the loss of my relationship with Jonathon.
Eric and I were very good friends. I met him when I was fifteen and he was sixteen. Two of my close friends were girlfriends of his brothers, so we'd often hang out together at high school parties, beach gatherings, and concerts. He looked really young for his age and the guys I was interested in romantically were always two or three years older than I was. Eric just wasn't my type for a boyfriend, but he was a good friend. He felt the same way about me. He even invited me to his prom.
I was seventeen when I asked Jesus to be the Lord of my life and on one occasion when I was eighteen I brought Eric to church. The pastor asked if anyone wanted to come forward to ask Christ to be the Lord of their lives. I told Eric he should go up front to accept Christ as his Lord. He thought I was a religious fanatic caught up in some kind of cult. We stopped calling each other. Eric went his way and I went my way.
Three years passed. I was twenty-one, engaged, and planning my wedding to Jonathon. When Jonathon had asked me to marry him the first time, I had asked for more time, just to make sure; and, when I prayed about it, I had a feeling that he wasn't the right man for me. But, because we were both Christians and I saw him as a very caring man, I rationalized away that feeling and finally agreed to marry him. Our wedding plans were well under way and several large wedding deposits were in when he told me he "wasn’t sure" he really loved me and needed time to think about it. I figured after two years of dating, he should know. I ended our relationship. As it turns out, he had started caring about a girl who was a new Christian at work. He married her about four months later.
Looking back, I realize that God had protected me from marrying the wrong man. It was probably Him who prevented me from having peace about marrying Jonathon. I can see that now; but the pain then was excruciating. I lost a lot of weight and went through a depression. I couldn't even talk about Jonathon without crying.
That was when God brought Eric back into my life. Our mutual friend, Christina, told me that Eric had asked Jesus to be his Lord. I couldn't believe it and called him right away. I could tell that God was really working in Eric's life. He was always caring, but seemed even more kind then. We started doing stuff together a lot. He listened to a lot of my pain over Jonathon. He gave me support and encouragement. He also had his own apartment with a VCR (the new craze at the time!); while he was at work I used to go to his place to watch movies when I wanted to get some space away from my parents and five brothers. Christina ended up marrying Eric’s friend, Tim. So Eric and I often bumped into each other at their house and hung out with them. I loved that I could be myself around Eric. He saw me with no make-up and in the depths of my depression over Jonathon, and still cared about me. He was literally like a brother to me and God used his friendship to help me through my pain.
Eric started dating a gal named Jamie. I was happy for him. In fact, I drove them on one of their dates in my new car. We drove to Hollywood. Jamie knew I wasn't a threat. Eric had assured her that he had never been attracted to me in "that way." Eric and Jamie dated for several months.
Christina would tell me during that time that Eric and I belonged together. I would get really mad at her when she said such things. I would tell her not to say them because Eric and Jamie were together and he was like a brother to me. I didn't want anything to get in the way of our friendship.
A short time later Eric and Jamie broke up. Close to that time, he came over to my place and was in my yard before he knocked. One of my neighbors saw him and said to me, "Someone's outside for you and he’s really good looking." I wondered who she could possibly be talking about. When it was Eric, I tried to look at him from her perspective. Suddenly I realized he wasn't the young guy he'd seemed to be when I met him. I saw for the first time that Eric had really become an attractive man.
We continued to talk a lot on the phone and do stuff together. My feelings started to change toward him. Suddenly, I wanted more than friendship with Eric. I started to tell him one night on the phone, but was afraid to. He had never shown any interest in me in that way. I didn't want to jeopardize our friendship by admitting my new feelings.
Soon after that, I was at the check-stand at the supermarket where I worked and a dozen roses came for me with a card that read, "Somebody loves you." I hoped they were from Eric. A second dozen came the next day and when the third dozen came for me on the following day, the card said, "If you want to know who loves you, meet me at the court area at a mall."
Somehow I knew the flowers must be from Eric. I was shocked because I knew he was trying to express that he wanted our relationship to move to a new level. Although I wanted that too, I was afraid. I knew if dating him didn’t work out (as my relationship with Jonathon hadn't) that I'd lose my best friend.
When I showed up at the mall, Eric was there. He explained to me that when he was dating Jamie and she had told him that she was thinking about transferring to his college to be at the same school he was, he realized that she was getting serious about their relationship. So he had asked God if she was the girl he was supposed to eventually marry. As he prayed, he felt like God answered, "No, Lorena is." At first he was really surprised, but eventually he pulled out a list of qualities he'd made that he wanted his wife someday to have and he realized that I had every one of those qualities.
Though we started dating, Eric had determined that we would not even kiss unless we got married. He made rigid rules that we could not be alone in a house together; we had to sit outside to talk when no one else was around. The fact that he respected me physically made me love him even more.
Then, about a year after we started dating, Eric started getting really busy with work and school and stopped spending as much time with me. I started to panic that he was going to leave me just like Jonathon had; so I confronted him.
"You hardly ever spend time with me anymore," I began. "Where is our relationship going? If I mean something to you, you need to spend time with me!" Eric tried to explain that things were just really busy with work and school, but when I kept giving him a hard time, he finally had had enough. He knew there was only one way I'd believe him.
He threw up his hands in surrender and said, "Fine, ruin the surprise!" and gave me a ring used for sizing rings that he had given my sister to determine what size engagement ring to have made for me. After explaining all that, he asked me to marry him. I was shocked and ecstatic. I had not expected his proposal at all.
We were married about a year later. At our wedding, we shared our first lip to lip kiss. I am so thankful that God knew which man I was to marry all along and orchestrated so many things in my life to ensure I ended up with Eric. He and I laugh now as we both admit we truly never considered each other in any way other than friendship until God changed both our hearts within the same month. Before Eric, my dating relationships with men were based on external attraction. God allowed me to be blinded to how truly handsome Eric is until the timing was right for me to see it. Our relationship was founded on self-sacrificial love and respect well before we were attracted to each other physically. My best friend has truly become my beloved.
"I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten..." – Joel 2:25a
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