Every Epic Love Story, Chapter Six; The Next Day After

I know, lots of time has passed since I last told a chapter of how I met my beautiful wife. But I feel the need to start telling it again. If you need to review, feel free to click back through some previous chapters, linked below.

I had been emotionally shot in the heart.

Months I had been longing to be with Jenni, was with her for not-even-ONE-day, and had lost her.

I went back to my room, and moped.

I know, that's not very epic-sounding, but I was a teenager in love. A teenaged boy in love. Moping was pretty much the extent of my emotional range.

But something remarkable stirred in my heart. I *knew* she was wrong. Wrong about me not being ready for the relationship she wanted.

I knew I could make her happy. And I wanted the chance to do it.

I'm not trying to aggrandize my relationship with Jenni by putting the picture of Adam and Eve up top. There is a reason it is there.

Last month, we were at the Washington DC temple, and I considered the story of Adam and Eve. I learned something important about marriage as I thought about their choices.

Eve made a choice in the Garden, one that she knew would lead to her expulsion and eventual death. In the temple this time, My mind was filled with a bloom of sentiments that Adam might have experienced in that moment.

He could have been filled with anger or disappointment that Eve had made a choice to disobey God. A choice to leave Adam.

He could have lectured her. Given her the silent treatment.

He could have been self-righteous.

But Adam, faced with the reality, that Eve was leaving, followed her.

Every relationship is filled with break points; moments where the relationship fails or survives. It is not mine to ever judge why someone else's relationship breaks. There are surely good reasons for that. I imagine being faced with your partner's bald disobedience of God (a disobedience that would now result in your partner leaving you) is one good reason to let the relationship end.

But I knew, considering Father Adam's choice, I knew with brilliant certainty that he chose Eve over every other possibility. What an act of humility and devotion.

He loved her more than he wanted to be right in the moment. Such a mundane sentence to capture what turned out to be such a profound choice. And in every successful relationship, in ever successful marriage, that same choice is made. Often more than once. In some marriages, perhaps over and over again. Rather than saying, "Fine!" when confronted with some grievance and turning away, someone chooses to stay. Stay and fight with hope for the future.

When Jennilyn broke up with me, I could not possibly know what our future held. But my young heart made a leap far beyond its age; I resolved to get her back. It is a choice I have never regreted.

Remind yourself how we got here by reading chapter 5.

Chapter seven is right here.