Lord, Change Him; He’s Such a Jerk

I’m sitting here at my desk, looking at a note from my husband. It’s a simple little note, and any other person would probably throw it in the trash, deeming it not very valuable. But to me, it’s a reminder of how far we have come since those early days of our marriage.

I’m sure you’re saying to yourself, “Wow, it doesn’t take much to please her!” What you don’t know is that this morning, all I said was “I don’t like my new toothbrush. The handle is too fat to hold comfortably.”

That was it. As he did the grocery shopping (yes, he does the grocery shopping most of the time), he thought of me and bought a new toothbrush. For you to understand why this is so meaningful, I need to tell you our story. Here goes …

I grew up in Manchester, New Hampshire, as part of a large French Canadian family. My mom was one of twelve children, and my dad was one of eight. We were always surrounded by aunts, uncles, and cousins. I was one of five children, but there was a fourteen-year span between the oldest and the youngest. Because of this, I don’t have a lot of memories of all of us being around at the same time. I was the fourth of the five children, so my two older sisters and one brother were doing their own teenage things when I was playing cars and army with my younger brother, Tim. I was a tomboy who loved to play all kinds of sports. Living in the cold north, it was possible for my dad to make us an ice-skating rink every year. When I was little, we used it for fun skating parties and even for a fundraiser to raise money for the poor children in Biafra. As I grew a little older, it became my hockey rink. I loved anything hockey. Playing, watching, and reading about hockey was my passion. The Bruins were my team. This was before helmets became standard gear, so you could see the players’ faces. And, of course, what young girl didn’t have a crush on Derek Sanderson? I played field hockey at school, street hockey in the summer at home, and ice hockey in the winter. I even got to play part of one season for the very first girls’ ice hockey team in New Hampshire.

Though I was a tomboy, I always had a crush on one boy or another. I even started “going out” with boys in fourth grade. This consisted of hanging out at school and even kissing boys by the sixth grade. I pretty much had a “boyfriend” from fourth grade through eighth grade. Then I hit high school, and things changed in that area. I didn’t purposely decide not to “go out” or date much, but it just happened that way.

I turned my life over to God when I was fourteen years old and, even at that young age, actually became serious about trying to follow him. So I was picky about the boys I wanted to date. I also went to three different high schools; this experience didn’t lend itself to building really deep relationships.

When I was sixteen years old, I did date an older guy and thought he might be “the one.” I soon realized that while he was a great guy, I did not love him. I had a few dates here and there and had one guy “claim me in the name of Jesus,” but I never developed another deep relationship. To say I was naive about love and relationships is an understatement.

In May of my senior year, I attended a Christian outdoor camping festival in our area with my parents. It was a fun weekend, and I saw many friends I knew from different Christian circles. During the course of the weekend, I needed to borrow a belt, so I visited a campsite of some of my friends and yelled out, “Anyone have a belt I can borrow?” Someone came up to me and said he did, and he gave a belt to me right then and there. I had never met this guy before, but he was with all the people I did know. I said thank you and walked away.

Later in the weekend, we spoke for a while, and I had the sense that he was interested in me. As for me, the only thing I saw was a walking fashion disaster. He had on blue polyester pants that were far too short and white socks to boot. His bangs were really long and parted on the side. Every time he spoke, he shook his head to get them out of his eyes. He was not ugly by any means, but to a seventeen-year-old, fashion is everything. I gave him back his belt, said good-bye, and thought that would be it. You probably have guessed by now that the guy I am talking about is my husband, Dave.