Jeffrey proposed to me. Many of you have already read When God Broke My Heart (under Featured), but I decided to share the exerpt of our engagement, in honor of this day. What a fabulous five years it has been! Thank you, my amazing husband, for committing your life to me and loving me so heroically. I love you.
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Sunday night I got back to Corvallis, and Jeff called to say he wanted to come see me but was swamped with wrapping up all the retreat stuff and so he’d just pick me up the next morning at 8am for our usual work-out. That sounded fine with me; I was tired and ready for my own bed, so I went to bed early and slept a deep, dreamless sleep.
I slept so well that I didn’t even wake up to my alarm.
At 8:02 Lori knocked on my door, “Kar, Jeff’s here.” She was pretty brief in the mornings. I gasped when I looked at the clock and threw off the covers. I went to the kitchen to meet Jeff, still in my sweats and XL t-shirt, my hair still in its funky slept-on state.
I put my hand over my mouth to guard my morning breath, “Good morning,” I greeted him sheepishly.
“Good morning, my love!” He pulled me close and kissed the top of my head. I loved how he smelled in the morning before he’d showered. It was raw morning Jeff and in inhaled into his chest to fill my lungs with it.
“Sorry I look so scary,” I pulled away to head toward the bathroom, “let me just get decent.”
“You look great! Just go like you are, you don’t have to impress anybody.” Jeff insisted, nodding toward the door. I was in no hurry.
“Ok. Let me get together my stuff.” I dawdled around, at least brushing my teeth and pulling on my tennis shoes. I wandered a bit aimlessly and Jeff stood by the door waiting. “I can’t find my keys. Lor, you seen my keys?” She hadn’t. Jeff shifted feet. I looked in every bag and on every surface. No keys.
“Let’s just stop by Dawson’s apartment on our way out, he has a key to your place, right?” Jeff suggested. Dawson lived just three doors down in our same apartment complex. I agreed, so we finally headed out and swung by Dawson’s place, obviously waking him up as well, and got a spare key. Finally, twenty minutes later, we were in the car and on our way. Jeff started asking about the retreat and as I filled him in on the details, we passed Gold’s Gym.
“Where are we going?” I asked, mid-sentence.
“Oh, Scott and AJ need some stuff cleaned out of the basement of the Antioch House so I told ‘em we’d swing by since we’re already in our old clothes. Is that ok? I figured you’re ok with it.” He explained. I said it was fine by me and finished telling him about the retreat. We pulled up to the Antioch House—an old abandoned fraternity and our church had purchased and was going to remodel into a college men’s house. Right now our friends, Scott and AJ, were caretakers, living in one of the rooms and basically keeping an eye on the old place and working to clear out debris. The house had an amazing basement, used for parties, with a dance floor and huge stone fireplace. “You know, we haven’t even prayed together yet this morning. Let’s pray.” We’d made the effort to pray together and read some scripture together when we met in the mornings, so Jeff read me a psalm and we sat in the car and prayed together. Then we took the front steps by twos and Jeff punched in the code and let us in the mammoth front doors.
I felt weird walking in without knocking. “Where are they?” I asked Jeff.
“Scott?” Jeff called out. No answer, but as we headed toward the basement I could hear voices. Jeff lead the way, holding my hand as we headed down the steps in the semi-darkness. I realize the voices were actually worship music playing, and I could see a slight flicker of firelight against the back wall. As we reached the bottom of the steps, Jeff looked around to the other side of the basement. “What’s that?” He asked me, smiling.
I looked around the corner and saw the fireplace lit up with dozens and dozens of candles. A red cloth lay on the hearth, covered in candles, a Bible, and roses strewn everywhere. I was lost in confusion. Oh my gosh we shouldn’t be here, Scott and AJ have something romantic going on. I backed up, thinking we were walking in on something private, but Jeff moved ahead of me and pulled me forward, then looked back at me and smiled. It all started to sink in.
“What is going on?” I demanded. He smiled and looked over at the other corner.
“What’s that?” He asked, pointing. I turned around and saw a Lite Brite, aglow in the dark with “Will U Marry Me?” shining brightly toward us. I gasped and spun around back toward Jeff. He was on one knee, smiling up at me. “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!” I said over and over, not able to believe that he had actually surprised me and planned this whole thing without me knowing.
“Karina Elizabeth Zyp, will you be my wife?” I pulled him up to his feet and threw myself in his arms, pressing my face into his chest, not able to speak at first. Finally he pulled me away and looked into my eyes. “Well?” He smiled, requesting a response.
“Yes, yes, yes! Of course, yes!” I laughed. I wrapped my arms around his neck and put my face against the side of his, and we danced and danced to the music, savoring the moment.
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I don’t know how long we danced, but I could’ve danced there forever. Jeff’s “morning smell”, the feel of his arms wrapped around me, the music, the candles, the absolute bliss of realizing that I was in the arms of the man who wanted to spend his entire life with me. I fired questions at him—How did he plan this? How did he keep it a secret? He was eager to tell me everything—how he’d thrown me by asking me about ring shopping, how he’d gone shopping during the men’s retreat and set the entire thing up last night, then lit the candles this morning before coming to get me.
“No wonder you were in a hurry to get going!” I laughed, realizing how I must have pained him with my dawdling ways that morning.
“I just kept thinking, ‘Uh, the candles are burning, can we get moving?!’” He admitted. I just marveled—I never thought I could be surprised and had totally underestimated his ability to plan the perfect proposal.
“I was so bummed when you didn’t propose at Valentine’s Day,” I admitted.
“I know. That would have been too predictable, I knew you’d expect it. I wanted to surprise you, besides, I wanted to propose to you like this, first thing in the morning, in your sweats and sweatshirt, with no make-up on, because I want you to know that this is how I love you most, the real you, the raw you. I love who you are, Karina Elizabeth Zyp.” I shook my head in wonder. How did I ever deserve a man like this?
After laughing about the horrid Valentine’s day experience and how disappointed I’d been, Jeff explained that the ring on my finger was a borrowed ring from the jeweler. Jeff had already purchased the princess-cut diamond, but we had an appointment that afternoon to go so I could personally design the ring of my dreams. I was amazed. It was perfect. It saved me the awkwardness of not knowing what size diamond he could afford, but gave me the freedom to design it exactly as I wanted. Again, I was speechless—how did he know to do it exactly like that?!
Now we realized there were a million things to discuss—the date, the location, who would be in our wedding. There were details beyond measure, so we made ourselves forget that for the moment, so could just savor this time we had. So, we sat down in front of the hearth with the candles glowing at our backs. I leaned into Jeff’s arms and we bowed our heads and Jeff prayed.
“Thank you, Lord so much for blessing me with Kari. Thank You that we get to spend the rest of our lives exploring each other and glorifying You together. Thank you for the grace . . . I’M ON FIRE! I’M ON FIRE! I’M ON FIRE!” Horrified I opened my eyes and realized he was not joking, his Nike dry-fit shirt had caught on fire and a flame was blazing on his back. Panicking, we both stood up and I began patting his back with my hands. In just a few seconds the flames were extinguished, and for a moment we just stood stock-still, unable to believe what just happened. Then we burst into laughter.
“Did that just happen?!” Jeff looked down at me.
“Did you just catch on fire?!” I was hysterical. Jeff was actually in some pain, as the fire had burned through his two-layer dry-fit shirt and the t-shirt underneath, but the hilarity of the situation took priority. Jeff decided that he had to save the shirt for the rest of our lives as a keepsake to remind us of this moment.
“I’ll wear it on every anniversary!”
Four months later, on June 28th, 2003, we had our first kiss. On our wedding day. It was almost a hundred degrees outside and everyone declared it was the hottest wedding in town. During our wedding dance, I thought of another slow dance two years before, at our friends’ wedding, where I’d almost fainted with joy at the touch of Jeff’s hand. I thought of the pain that had come after, of the confusion, the waiting, the depression, the difficulty, and the beauty and life that had sprung up from it all. I thought of how much I’d changed, grown, matured, and come to know God in a deeper way through it all. I thought of how it was in the loving plan of God to break my heart. I looked up at Jeff and he was watching me, with his slightly squinted eyes and pursed lips, that searching and savoring look I’d come to know meant that he was marveling at me. I turned up my face and let him kiss me on the lips, then leaned back my head, my face upturned to the sky, my eyes closed and a smile spread across my face, lost in bliss. Yes, I decided. He knew what He was doing when God broke my heart.