A Bundle of Myrrh

 

A hat from my uncle before I left for NE. He was never gonna wear it, he’s funny if he thought I WOULD!
Go Horns.

Ok, I promise I’m gonna wrap this Love Story up soon, maybe 2 more installments. The glorious Pioneer Woman wrote her Love Story in 40 installments before she just decided to turn the whole thing into a book. Don’t worry I don’t have that much more to say.

Click HERE for Parts I-V of this ramble.

My plane landed in Omaha and I was shaking. I got off, still with that cheese ball grin on my face and headed to the Ladies Room for a quick look see, making sure I wasn’t too much of a mess. Nose clean, teeth clean, hair…well, hair was there. Then I was ready to see Phil on his new turf. I was just hoping not to embarrass myself too much during my 5 days in Nebraska and so nervous about meeting his parents!

Phil’s mom had come down with him to pick me up in Omaha. She had made me feel so at ease! We all took advantage of being in Omaha. Browsing bookstores and having lunch at the The Upstream Brewing Co., now one of our favorite places to eat.

And here is our first picture together appropriately taken over their beer sampler.

Phil’s mom even got in on the beer tasting.

Then it was on to rural North East NE where Phil would be.

I was shocked at how hilly and green this part of NE is. I had expected flat farmland. To my relief it was beautiful!

Of course I had to take pictures of everything. The church he had been called to.

His cozy little study, reading a letter I had written him and just given to him.

His parents.

The “out in the middle of no-where-ness” of the town. I was a little dubious about this but beginning to find it charming.

Each evening we took walks around town and I’ll tell y’all it was disgustingly romantic; cool breezes, cornfields, fireflies lighting up everywhere and this weekend even FIREWORKS, yes, the real kind.

It was almost July 4th and around here the celebrating starts days before. It was enough to make even someone like Phil think LOVE was possible!

Friday and Saturday were spent helping Phil settle in to his new home. Helping his mom pick out lamps for the living room, helping to iron some of Phil’s shirts and wondering if I’d have more years of this to come, looking around the house wondering if this would ever become my new home too.

Then came Ordination day. We all attended the Sunday morning service together, the Vacancy Pastor leading.

I don’t remember much of this day except how surreal all of this felt.

Phil later told me that he’d been more nervous about ME coming than he’d been about his Ordination day. He was right to be nervous!

I’m sure the congregation was curious about “the girl” with Pastor. They’d seen us walking together around town. But since neither of us knew what to call the other, I was introduced several times as Pastor’s “friend“.

I asked Phil if I could spell Friend with a Ph. He said “No.”

That afternoon Phil was Ordained and Installed as Pastor in this church.

The church he would one day baptize our babies in and where we would on rare occasions get to sit together and watch them sing for the first time in their VBS programs. I’m sure I would have exploded right there if I’d known all that back then.

I think I boo-hooed through the entire service as I watched God give another Pastor to His church.
It was a little humbling to think that God would PERHAPS make me the wife of this man, this pastor’s wife.

Remember that 12 year old girl I had become? Yeah. She makes a lot of appearances in this story.

Then there was the part I worried would be even more awkward than going to church together.
Meeting friends that knew Phil better than I did!

His Vicarage Supervisor and his family and some of the members from his Vicarage Congregation were there that day.

But no one said a word. The words I’m sure they were wanting to say “WHO ARE YOU? AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!”

They were all so kind and I thought it was wonderful that they had come from Iowa to Phil’s Ordination.

And we actually had some mutual friends there!
Pastor Smith and his family that I had known in Texas before I even knew Phil and who now lived in NE.

It was this weekend that we had pretty much decided that we would be married but Phil wanted to test me, to make sure I was the real deal. There was still no official “Will you marry me?”

Monday came and Phil drove me back to Omaha to catch a plane home. I remember Phil shaking his head as he drove, looking at me and saying “It’s a miracle.”

It all certainly was.

There was more beer and more talking.

An awkward hug at the airport, and then I sat, waiting for a plane to take me away.
Back to life as usual in Austin, back to that job I didn’t like and back to being without Phil.

I’ll admit it, I was teary the whole way home!

As I waited for a a fix in the cockpit which delayed our flight into Dallas…tears. And as I sat late at night in DFW waiting for the next flight to Austin, more tears!

The next day I was back at work wondering what would happen next.

And you’ll have to wonder too!

ToBeContinu-ed.

Part VII

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