So here’s how our story begins:
I had just lost an eight month-long court battle trying to get more visitation with three of my four children. All four of my kids are with my first wife. I have three boys and a girl, who is the youngest. In 2007, I had met someone whom I thought would be a life partner who was a Christian. I married in November of 2008 and due to the economy, losing my home, etc, I made the difficult decision to move about two hours away from my kids with my second wife. I obtained a court order to have visitation with them every other weekend.
As fate and God’s hand would have it, my second wife decided she didn’t want to be married and filed for divorce after two years and eight months of marriage. I was able to transfer back to the state prison where I am employed as a corrections officer, which is very close to where my kids resided with their mother. Upon finally relocating back to Sonora, CA, I immediately began petitioning the court for more time with the children.
Although it wasn’t always easy, I kept my eyes on God throughout both divorces. My thoughts and every decision I made were with my kids in mind. I felt I needed a distraction from the life consuming family legal battle. I kept praying that God would work it out even when my second wife wanted to resume certain aspects of our relationship, about a year after divorcing me. I just wanted to find a nice Christian lady who loved the Lord and had a similar story to mine. Then there she was on Christian Mingle! Her name is Annette and I really liked her profile. I finally paid for a three month subscription to advise her to, “crop the picture with her daughter in it and repost it” and said “Oh and by the way I think you’re very pretty and I really like your profile.”
As God’s divine appointment would have it, we knew mutual people at the prison where I worked and Annette had family in the area where I lived. She had wanted to move to my community for a couple of years. In fact, she had applied for a nursing position at the prison where I work just two weeks prior to my initial e-mail to her through Christian Mingle.
After about a week of emails back and forth, we spoke by phone for several hours. I didn’t waste any time setting up a breakfast date for two days later. As soon as I sat down across from Annette, my jaw dropped as I gazed into her big gorgeous brown eyes. I lost my breath. I think it was something like love at first sight, but I’d never given that much credence. It was funny because just a few minutes into our first date, we both came out with an embarrassing secret…both of us had been divorced twice.
As my dad always said, “The third time’s a charm.” I don’t think he was referring to marriage though. Before our date was over Annette asked me if I liked log homes as a full time residence. My jaw dropped for the second time! A log home has been a lifelong dream of mine. I could go on and on about our amazing connection. I feel God has blessed me so much in my relationship with Annette because I stayed the course in my Christian walk. We are both so very happy and feel so blessed. Thanks for being there, Christian Mingle!
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