Friday 17 November 2017

A Real-Life Catholic Love Story - Part 3 of 13 - Thomas Falls in Love

Read Part 1 and Part 2 first.

Part 3 - Thomas Falls in Love 

After one year of serving God in two different Asian countries, Thomas and Genevieve returned to the base for Year in Review, the year-end retreat. One of the talks was about personalities, and as the speaker mentioned “Opposites attract”, Thomas started dreaming, “Who is a very opposite person to me?” His thoughts immediately went to Genevieve. As he began to think more of her, he realized that he was attracted to her.

During the three weeks at the base, Thomas made no move to act on his feelings, but surprisingly God set up a bunch of ‘dates’ for them. Once Genevieve invited him to go to New Orleans to drop off their friend, Rebecca, to the airport, and it was just the three of them hanging out. They had a great time together, realizing they both liked Christian rap. As they walked around the city, Thomas glanced at Genevieve and thought, “I really like this girl. Maybe I could ask her out sometime.” But as they were talking, their recently completed dating fast came up, and Genevieve said, “I realize I’m not ready to be in a relationship. I need some time with just the Lord.” To Thomas’ surprise, he felt something deep inside of him say, “I can wait. I can wait years.” This had never happened before. He put his feelings on hold, and just continued walking and listening and taking in a lot of information about her.

Another time a couple they were friends with had four tickets to go rock climbing, and they invited Genevieve and Thomas to go with them separately. Thomas was thrilled at all these opportunities to spend time with her. Genevieve had no clue at all that Thomas liked her. She was her usual frank, open, friendly self. Strangely enough, she said a few things at that time that prefigured what God was going to do two years later.

Once when Genevieve’s mother was visiting the base, Genevieve went up behind Thomas and jokingly mouthed to her, “Mom, I’m going to marry this guy!” Later as she was introducing him to her mom, she said “This is Thomas, my fiancé.” It was the first time Thomas was meeting her mom and he was speechless. Genevieve had no idea why she said those words.

At one time when they were both at an inner healing retreat, Genevieve looked at Thomas and said, “I really want to know your heart.” She had no ulterior motive, but felt comfortable saying random things to Thomas because she thought of him as a really safe and prudent guy who would never read too much into her words. Thomas was aware that she didn’t see him that way, and responded to the heart-knowing invitation by just patting her on the back, thinking, “I really want to share my heart with you, but… let’s take it easy.” After the inner healing retreat they went out to a yogurt place and Genevieve invited him to marry one of her sisters. Thomas was a little hurt.

Next - Part 4 - God Makes Genevieve Some Promises 

Or become a patron and get the whole story at one time!  Not to mention a postcard from me!

1 comment:

  1. Wow! Very prophetic...Though she thought she was just saying silly things!

    ReplyDelete