When you know, you know. The legacy Mark likes to share with others is the fact that since I was thirteen years old, I prayed for my future spouse. That means that for eight years, before having even met him, I prayed over his life, his family, and our marriage.
It seems only fitting then, that today I get around to sharing with you all the pictures and video from our wedding night. After all, we originally proposed to get married at 7PM on April 8, 2016...today. I praise God for His sovereign will and for speeding the process up some.
I still look at the ring on my hand or the man I wake up next to each morning and find myself amazed and struggling to believe that this is reality. We did it. Through the help of family and friends, by God's grace, we made a wedding happen in little time and got married. We are husband and wife. I have a mighty spiritual leader, the very one I prayed for so long that God would send to me.
He only just turned 21 years old, yet I have hardly met someone with the passion and strength to lead me in life. He is always challenging me to go deeper in my love for God, and I honestly must say that I am beyond spoiled and rarely do I not feel like a princess. He goes above and beyond for me, even when I am being silly, selfish, and unreasonable.
You see, it was only 365 days ago that he stopped by the children's desk at the library...to tell me that he'd be moving and I wouldn't see him anymore. We had met a few months earlier, but we had hardly had a decent conversation or gotten to know each other. He was just another patron at the library....a cute one, mind you...but I didn't know him very well. But, by that tugging feeling of the Holy Spirit, as he was leaving the library, he turned around and walked back to me.
And somehow, we began sharing testimonies of God's faithfulness in our lives and of our hearts for missionary work. I happened to be in the process of working on a blog post for Bigger Story, so I shared the link to my devotional site with him. And from that point onward God began to steadily grow our friendship. We played limbo for a while, creating boundaries, closing our hearts off to relationships because neither of us wanted to be distracted from serving God alone, but finally God "stirred up and awakened love," and just three months later, in July, he knew he was going to marry me. On my birthday, August 9, through a totally Spirit-led conversation, we decided that instead of waiting three years to get married, we'd get married within a year, and set a date for April 8, 2016. On September 5, he proposed to me--which is another story all in itself! Within the next month, we changed the date from April 8 to December 19, so after just a three-month engagement, we exchanged vows, and...after ALL the waiting (which no longer seems like very much at all...) I became Mrs. Samantha Rose Carpenter-Olivier.
Mark Olivier, I do not want to imagine what life would be like had you not turned around that day at the library. You seriously are beyond a blessing in my life, and you are constantly reminding me of the self-sacrificing love of Jesus Christ. You are quick to forgive, and even quicker to humble yourself and apologize. You are filled with grace, mercy, and love. You are SO patient and understanding toward me. You know how to handle me better than I do! I love you so much, and although we were unable to spend this day together, I know that it will be so blessed. The past four months have been an incredible journey, and I am joyfully anticipating what adventure remains!