"Our Love was Meant to Be"
submitted by Rachel Rossano
www.geocities.com/crownofanavrea
February 2005

Who better to share her romance story than a romance writer!

Rachel Rossano contacted us regarding her romantic proposal.  We enjoyed reading her story and know you will, too! She mentioned the following in her e-mail:

"I write fantasy romantic adventure fiction.  I have loved to read since I was a child.  As I grew, I found myself rewriting the endings of the books I read.  Then, I started telling stories of my own.  When I shared them with a few friends, they wanted more.  So, I am writing more and loving the writing."

Below is Rachel's true romance story.  If you would like to read our short interview with Rachel, stop by at Rachel Rossano Interview.

____________________________

I met my husband-to-be for the first time in 1995 when my family moved from a suburb of Philadelphia to the Enfield, Connecticut. My father is a pastor, and he had accepted a new position as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Enfield. It was quite a change for my family and especially me.

At the time, I was 16 years old and had little experience socializing with teenagers. In Pennsylvania, my friends had been much younger than me and suddenly I was thrown into a church with a large youth group. I quickly found I was not fitting in with any of the cliques; so, I decided to look other places for friends. The church had quite a few young men fresh out of college. It was surprising, but I found them more accepting than my peers.

Greg, one of my new friends, was interested in discussing spiritual things. He spent a great deal of time asking questions and discussing theology and apologetics with my father both at church and at our home. As time passed, we became close friends. Soon members of our church family were asking us if we were dating. We always replied that we were just friends. Their response was usually a knowing smile.

The summer of 1997 was a momentous one in my life. My mother home schooled my two sisters, my brother, and myself. The day after school finished, while carrying a basket of laundry down the stairs, Mom fell and broke her right leg clean through. It took surgery to put it back together. About two weeks later, my brother came in from the backyard with his hand over his eye and blood everywhere. He had gotten a piece of glass in his eye. Since Mom was immobile in her hip-to-foot cast, I went with Dad and David to the emergency room. A midnight surgery remedied the problem. I began to wonder what God had in store for us next. A few weeks later the next crisis hit. While reaching for a bowl in the kitchen, Dad missed; the bowl fell to the counter and broke. Dad ended up getting stitches in his hand.

Finally, we thought we had gotten through the bout of bad accidents. These things come in threes, right? That year my father was scheduled to preach at family camp. As my family was heading out the door and climbing into our van, my sister, Bethany, wrenched her ankle so badly, she was limping for days. While they were gone, Hannah, my other sister, injured her knee playing field hockey. To this day, she periodically has trouble with it. This series of injuries was making me nervous. Every one of my family members had been hurt in some way except me.

The week my family went to family camp, I had to take the GED. The college I had applied to in New York had closed that summer. As a result, I was scrambling last minute to apply and get accepted at the local community college. A requirement for me to matriculate was that I had to have a state issued high school diploma. So, I had to take my GED before school started in September. I am telling you all this so you know why it was absolutely necessary for me to stay home that week while my family was at family camp.

Throughout this whole saga from broken leg onward, Greg had been extremely helpful. He came over daily to check on us, gave me rides to work, and helped with housework. So, when he found out that I was staying home to take the GED, he offered to give me rides to and from each testing session. That week, I finally asked him point blank if we were officially dating. I will remember it forever. We were sitting on the back steps on Wednesday night after prayer meeting. He agreed that we were officially dating. I thought I would burst with happiness and excitement. It was not until later I realized that we started dating on August 12, 1997, my dad’s birthday.

As soon as everyone at church knew we were dating, we got teased even more. It was not long before we were getting asked when we were going to get married. We did not disappoint them. By March 1998, we were talking about marriage pretty seriously. Greg is a thoughtful man and wanted to be sure that marriage was God’s will for us. On Sunday the 15th, after a long discussion with my parents we decided it was time to make the commitment. On Monday the 16th, we went shopping for the ring. Greg wanted to get me bigger stone, but I insisted I wanted this delicate bridal set of two rings with three small diamonds set with the largest in the middle. I told him that it would represent our relationship: as long as we keep God in the center it will be a success.

On St. Patty’s day, we had already been planning to go to New York City to meet my friend from Pennsylvania, her boyfriend, and another friend to go site seeing. Greg told me he would propose sometime during the day, but he would not tell me when or how. He wanted at least that to be a surprise. I had to wait all day and not say a word to our friends. Finally near the end of the day, we went off on our own to Central Park. Greg hired a horse-drawn carriage, read poetry that he had written, got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him. Of course, I said yes. Then, he gave me my first kiss.

Our friends were ecstatic, but we did not have much time to celebrate with them before we had to catch our bus back to Connecticut. When we finally left, we had to run. After racing for the bus station we barely caught our bus. We arrived home late, but my family was up. The first thing my little brother asked when we walked in the door was: "did Greg ask you?" When I told him the story, he was so happy. He kept saying he finally was getting a brother.

We were married the following August 8th. Four days short of our one-year anniversary of dating. Now six years later, we are still happy and very much in love. I am daily thankful to God for blessing me with such a wonderful husband and helpmate.

Return to Romantic Proposals

Return to Home Page