Backstory Pt. 2

Luke had one more year of college left. Our plan was that he would finish school while I lived and worked in the area. I loved him. He was the one, so I had no problems at all with this plan. Our summer together after my graduation was blissful, but Luke had left a summer job opportunity to travel with me for my job. My guess is that he started feeling a little useless, so during a visit we made to his parents home in Florida he applied for a job with the intentions of working only the remainder of the summer. However, they didn't want to offer him a temporary position and asked if he'd be willing to work full time for the rest of the year. He took the job.

Luke made it seem like he made a thoughtful and prayerful decision, but I had a gut feeling he was rushing into things. However, it seemed like such a great opportunity that I quieted my intuition. The job offered was at a juvenile detention center as an activities coordinator. The upside of this job would be he'd get experience working in a field closely related to the one he wanted to pursue (social work), and he would be able to save to pay off school loans. It seemed like such a solid plan. Sometimes solid doesn't equal good, but more on that later. I was so proud of him that I overlooked the fact that it would mean our relationship would go through some changes; our timeline for marriage would be off and we'd have to deal with long distance. At this time our relationship was still pretty new and I didn't feel qualified, if you will, to question his decisions. So I marched forward. 

I read recently in a John Eldredge book that "Starting very early in our lives life teaches us to ignore and distrust the deepest yearning of our heart." At this time I was learning to distrust myself, to be too understanding, and to ignore what I felt was right and what I yearned for. 

Because of his new job I would be back and forth between my home in Connecticut and his in Florida as well as going different places my job took me. I had no idea what I was in for. Yes, long distance relationships are hard, but I wasn't prepared for what was to come.