He Knows What We Need

There is a lyric in a Christian song where Chris Tomlin say’s, “you know just what we need before we say a word….” This lyric has always hit me growing up in a troubling home, everything always going wrong, and somehow I’m still here, I’m fine, I am normal. Despite everything trying to change that.

But today I was driving home from work; I was thinking about what a blessing my relationship with my boyfriend is. Typically with my annoyance while at work, I actually don’t listen to music with words on the drives home after work. However, I got out early in the day this time so simple, calming music from my ipod (and not the random radio station that has all the jazz music on it). That is when Good Good Father came on. I was tempted to change it because by now it is overplayed in every church that sings contemporary music. I’m sure it’s even overplayed on K-Love and any other Christian radio station.

But for some reason it caught my attention once again, as most overplayed worship songs do every now and then.

As the song progressed, I thought about my boyfriend being a blessing, and everything that led up to him being in my life, and all the events afterwards.

Evan showed up in my life about two weeks after I told my best friend, “I’m happy, and I think I’m just going to stay single this year and enjoy the friendships I had…”

In the meantime, I was preparing to lose my best friend, as she would graduate in a couple of months. However, I looked her right in the eye and said, “I’m actually happy, and I’m going to stay single…”

She laughed and said, “watch this is the year you get a boyfriend…”

Shortly after that, the team went on a hayride and some blonde freshman caught my eye, and I started asking those who had already formed friendships with him about him.

Although it seemed to take a while during the time that it was happening, it actually progressed rather quickly. One day we added each other on snapchat, a couple of days later I asked him if he needed to pick up things at the store and offered to take him to the grocery store. I then bought him Taco Bell since we both seemed to enjoy Taco Bell.

Then there were a couple of movie nights, spaghetti nights, video nights, nights of leaning and flirting, but never knowing where either of us stood in our relationship. Then one night I invited him over for dinner, and cards, while we waited for Sam and Deshawn to get back to our apartment so we could go to a haunted house. But they got home too late, and by the time they got home, Evan and I were holding hands on the couch watching The Fault In Our Stars.

That night, most people know the story, we were “asleep” I rolled over, and so we were face to face but still “asleep.” I inched my way up to him and kissed him at four in the morning.

We didn’t get much sleep that night… but by the next morning, I was ready to cut to the chase about what we were. Of course he was taken aback by it, but it worked.

(My whole cutting to the chase thing, is a whole other story stemming from the way that Tyler treated me years ago and the way that our relationship had started).

The relationship started out great, and through a kind of accidentally cruel prank, we realized how much we actually cared about each other, and very soon in the relationship. Like two weeks.

Then a month went by, and we started a cute little hobby that we do when one of us is stressed or we are tired of watching New Girl together. By month two, I had already had a meltdown from stress of school, and he talked me through it. I had been in an unspoken disagreement with a couple of friends on my team for a quite a while, and actually a lot of frustrating things from the first semester had built up into one ball of anger, expressed in a piece of writing.

The beginning of our third month (so right after our two month anniversary…) we were celebrating our first Christmas together, and because my room at my apartment was freezing, and home was not a place I wanted to be. I just chilled at Evan’s house… When I had just met his family the week before. I guess they learned to like me quickly in that situation. 

By the end of the third month I was crying… all the time. In the middle of watching Harry Potter, I just started sobbing at missing my best friend. After getting over that, I started venting to him about feuds going on amongst friends, and he told me, “until you can have a conversation with them, just act like things are normal…” But through my normal joking around and a feud still going on, I ended up receiving terrible text messages (which were kind of needed and deserved, but it still could have gone better) that left me sobbing in my bed. Evan kept asking me what was wrong, but it hurt so badly that I couldn’t speak. All I could get out was, “I’m trying…” and when I had calmed down, Deshawn took Evan home.

Month four, things were better, but I was starting to hate my sport, and I was suddenly the one supporting him in problems he was having with class.

By month five things were better, but I was still drowning in homework.

The end of month six, we had gone to Nationals and the first couple of days were great. But it was apparent that my only best friend there was Evan, and I didn’t want to ruin his bromances, so it left a feeling of loneliness and kind of like I was third wheeling a lot. 

By month seven, I was torn about figuring out jobs… and Evan was already hating Starbucks, and it was getting obvious that not being in each other’s lives every day was going to be hard.

By the end of month eight, I was distressed about quitting a job I hated; my Dad was going to jail. My Mom and Dad had screwed me over on a vacation. Everyone who knew that something was wrong was asking me questions, when I was trying to stay out of it. So Evan and I took a vacation to fix the mess that my Mom had started.

By month nine, I was once again in tears because a job I thought I liked, had screwed me over and told me I had to work on days that I had requested off. I ended up missing an event that I had regretted not being able to go to last year. Then I was getting texts that I wouldn’t get to see Evan.

It was lonely…

So as I was listening to the song in the car, the lyric where it says, “You know just what we need before we say a word…” It hit me.

A lot of times we don’t ask for what we need because we don’t know we need it.

That day when I was sitting in the gym, telling Katie that “I’m happy and I’m going to stay single this year…” if you had told me then that I would date the guy on the rings, and he would be one of the only reasons that I emotionally made it through this last school year… I would have laughed. I would have said, “no that’s what the junior squad is for…” or, “no, I’m sure Katie will still be around…”

If you had told me that I would have had extreme feelings of loneliness, and feeling like I just couldn’t get it together, and that I would be crying into the arms of my boyfriend every night. I wouldn’t have believed you.

I didn’t ask for a boyfriend who became my best friend because I didn’t know I needed one. That’s why we don’t even say a word, yet the Lord supplies his blessings without us knowing. Because he knows what we need before we do, and he sets us up for success and support before hand so we have it when we need it.