Will You Marry Me?

The Proposal
by F. Muschamp

Today is a very special day for my sweetheart and I. Thirty-six years ago this evening he surprised me by asking me to marry him. I wasn't surprised that he asked me - the day and the place he chose surprised me. After my initial ecstatic "yes" he asked when I would like to get married. I said, "Tomorrow!" We considered a Christmas wedding but decided there would not be enough time to have the big church wedding we both wanted. We finally chose to have a January wedding.

My dear sweetheart and I lived three hours apart at the time and we had not known each other very long. But we knew that God had brought us together and we knew we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. He asked me not to tell anyone of our engagement for THREE WEEKS! He had already met my mother but had not yet met my father who had been out-of-state during the weeks since we met. My sweetheart wanted to meet him before we shared the joy of our wedding plans with our families.

Imagine asking a girl to marry you and then telling her she can't tell anyone she's going to get married soon! It was very hard - but I did it! I did not tell a soul - not even my very best friend. For the next three weeks I went to work as usual every day but during my lunch hour each day I was busy running around and planning all the details of our wedding. Several times during those weeks my family and friends would speculate that I would have a ring by Christmas. I couldn't tell them I would have a ring before the end of the month and that I would be married shortly after Christmas!

Would I marry him again? No doubt about it. Yes, absolutely yes!