{Mrs.Cocks}

... there was a girl who lived in a small town, living a rather simple life and basking in the endless little pleasures that such a life produced. She was a girl of little consequence, easily overlooked; a girl who's dreams, passions and pursuits were as simple as the life she led. She dreamt of a home... a house that she would one day live in. 

She dreamt of the yard surrounding this house and of the family who would occupy it.... of the children who would bring her endless delight and a husband who's arms she could curl up in whenever she pleased. 

She dreamt of what life would be like...family outings, trips to the park, to the zoo, to the beach... little wilderness adventures. And trips to see family... Sunday dinners at Grandma and Grandpa's house, birthday parties with cousins...just small things.  

She cherished hopes of neither riches or fame, but ventured to aspire only to heights she felt were in her league, heights previously achieved. Having but a basic education and few talents, any dreams beyond this seemed presumptuous and injudicious.

One day, this insignificant girl met a very significant boy. She'd known him actually for some time already. They grew up quite near to one another and so occasioned to spend a fair bit of time in the company of the other. In all this time however, the two took little notice of each other and, aside from common pleasantries, spoke but rarely.

The girl, obviously being a degree or two lower then the lad, was nothing to merit any particular attention from him. Being so well bred and raised a good deal higher she felt, than herself, she never cast more than a habitual observation on her fellowman and a reserved awe for what she saw therein. 

This story, as you have guessed, is told from the perspective of the girl, whom, for the time being, we shall refer to as Princess; not merely because that is how she became known to the boy in our tale, but because, long before that, she had been declared one by the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords! 

Jesus Christ, her Lord, her King... was her true love. And she was His princess. 

This is truly, where the story begins, because it was then, as a young teenage girl, that our princess first fell in love. It was at this time that everything in life began to fade, except for Jesus, who just became clearer with each new day.

She had always known Him, been loved and cared for by Him and loved Him in return. All of the dreams and desires that filled the heart of the princess, insignificant though they were, had to be surrendered to the one who held the reigns of her life and her future. It sounds simple enough.... to hand over your plans to the one who is ultimately in control anyway. But it wasn't easy. 

She knew that God had a plan for her life and that it might not entail any of the dreams that encompassed her plan. While she knew that God presided over her life and everything therein, she was also keenly aware that she made the day to day choices that affected her attitude, the state of her heart and her future. 

God had a plan...she had hopes.... and the two might never be intertwined. 

One day, the girl came to the realization that it didn't matter.

Apart from God, nothing mattered, and with Him... every tiny detail DID matter. It dawned on this princess that she was only here on earth to fulfill a purpose already laid out for her and that it has nothing to do with her. In giving up all hopes and plans tied into her future "happiness," 

she was filled with unspeakable joy and empowered with strength to forge ahead, making decisions completely unnatural from her own human standpoint. 

So, it was at this juncture that our princess made the decision to give her heart in its entirety to God, reserving nothing. In fact, she decided that she would no longer view young men as potential beaus or allow herself to fall for them in any romantic capacity at all.

She knew that it was in her power to choose whether she would have a crush on someone or not and also to direct feelings and thoughts regarding them, as inevitably those arise. She took a stand then, declaring that no more of her time and energy, thoughts and emotions, would be wasted on passing fancies throughout her young life. She was going to save every bit of her heart for her future husband! 

(If indeed there was such a person) 

Every affection, every daydream... everything was to be saved for the man that she would marry, unless God so decreed that she should never marry. She was perfectly content to love and be loved by no one other than her God for her whole life! If she was to marry, she desired to marry the man of God's choosing, no matter what that entailed. 

However, she told Him that if it was in His plan for her to fall for someone, then He would practically have to drop the chap in front of her and say, "Him!" Because she was on a mission; She was focused on her Father and only him! Other men were merely distractions, so she dismissed romance from her mind entirely. 

A few splendid years passed, in which our princess discovered how much fun it truly is to 'date' God. :) Her life was wonderful and she was happy and content and, she thought, complete. 

It was in the Summer of 2008 that God decided to take me up on my promise to Him several years before.... (Yes, I am the princess, and this story is my own.) :)  

He decided that it was time to make known to me His plan for my future and.... the "chap" who would occupy it. Rory Cocks was a name that conjured up spontaneous flutterings of the heart and unabashed giggles from nearly every girl of my acquaintance within the homeschool sphere, and it was certainly not without foundation. 

He seemed to epitomize manliness. He was strong, athletic, smart as a whip; he was dashing and sophisticated, with just enough rogue in there to mystify. 

He was a solid Christian, raised in a Christ centred home; he was polite and well-mannered, and naturally... he was equally remarkable in appearance.  With his tall, dark and handsome physique and piercing blue eyes, he was your modern Jane Austen hero come to life! 

He beguiled me from the start with his quick wit, maturity and wholly boyish nature. My family began attending the W.E. Homeschool Co-op in the Spring of 2002 and that is where I first met Rory. 

We were only kids, but he was as charming a 12 year old as you could ever hope to meet. ;) I liked him, as of course everyone did, but I did not remain smitten for long. I think I believed him to have an adequately substantial entourage without any assistance from me, so I didn't carry a flame for long. 

I always respected him though, and admired several things about him. We continued at the Co-op until it's ending in 2008, and Rory and I had remained solely friends for the duration. 

He had never thought of me as anything other than a friend and I had long since ceased to feel anything but sisterly affection for him. It was out of this affection and genuine concern that I wrote to him in January of 2008, when he stopped attending the Co-op with the rest of his family. I wrote a little message to inquire after his well-being and to tell him that his presence was missed by all at Co-op. 

He replied to me, informing me that he was 'skipping out' on Co-op in order to concentrate on completing high school early. He and his brother Ian hoped to go tree planting during the Spring to make money for starting College in the Fall. 

So that was that. He wasn't coming back to Co-op and I knew that the likelihood of my seeing him again was slim at best. Come September, he was bound for Florida, for college, for a new life with new friends, (and the wife that I was sure he would find there.) 

I was so very sad to think of losing contact with him, but certain of its inevitability. I was closer friends with his sister and older brother and felt that I always would be, but Rory was such an independent and adventurous soul, I thought that he might never return once he took his leave. 

Something unexpected happened though because of that little message. We became pen pals of a sort. (Keyboard pals?) We began to correspond, writing letters of a light-hearted fashion. We quipped and teased one another, and I enjoyed our exchanges very much. 

The content of our letters changed however, when Rory left to go up north and plant trees in early May. The job was very physically demanding, mentally grueling, and abominable in every respect. 

Save his brother, the only people that he had any interaction with were of the most unsavory nature. 

He experienced a loneliness unlike any he had felt before, and it drove him deeper into God as each day became harder to face. 

He conversed with God all day long, every day, as he worked alone in the bush, and the effect of his state of mind, his heart and soul began to reflect in his letters. We wrote little, because Rory seldom got to town to access a library's computer, but the tone of our letters changed. 

Rory wrote openly about his days and expressed true gratitude for my friendship and prayers on his behalf, and I replied in kind. 

Our letters became sincere and unpretentious, and I developed a deeper admiration for this boy, 

as I began to truly know him and perceive his heart. 

He returned home at the beginning of July, just when corn detasseling season started up and I took to the fields. I still did not see him for weeks, as I was working full days and there was no occasion to provide opportunity to do so, but we still wrote, every day now, and I was delighted with the unlikely friendship that had come about. 

I did not care for Rory in a romantic sense, but I loved and cared about him tremendously as a brother, and I had come to harbour a hope that perhaps we would keep in touch and remain friends after all. 

The turn in this story happened at the end of corn detasseling season, the beginning of August, when my brother and I went to stay a weekend at the Cocks house. 

Nathan, myself and the 4 Cocks kids biked over to the Provincial Park in Wheatley to spend the day on the beach. The weather was too cool for a dip in Lake Erie, so Ian and Nathan took their bikes on the trails and the rest of us meandered up and down the shoreline, entertaining ourselves as we saw fit.  

It was then, in the midst of my swashbuckling frivolity with Andrea, (Rory's sister) that God deemed it a suitable time to "drop a fellow before me." What he actually did was speak into my heart, so clearly, so unmistakably, that it stopped me dead in my tracks. 

It was so unnatural... so audible, yet not. I knew that no one else heard it. I also knew that I couldn't mistake it for anything except God. It was what He said though that confused and dumbfounded me. I heard, "You and Rory are going to do great things for me on the mission field." 

Though He didn't say that I was going to marry Rory Cocks, I knew in my heart that that is precisely what it meant. I felt stunned and disoriented. 

Nothing like this had ever happened to me before! In fact this sort of thing didn't happen to most people! I felt so uneasy in my stomach, because as much as I respected and loved Rory, I didn't want to marry him.

It was so much fun to see him and spend time with him now that we were good friends, but...I still didn't want to marry him. I tried to reason it in my head... "I must have come up with that... strange... thought... on my own. But no! 

That was impossible! I didn't even have feelings for Rory like that! 

 I didn't WANT to marry him. 

I would never have come up with such a notion! But then.... that wasn't exactly what I heard, was it? No, it was that we would do great things for God on the mission field. Sooooo... MISSIONS!! :D 

We will probably go on a missions trip together! Someday.... maybe. And do... amazing things!...while... we're there. Yeah! :) Maybe. Mmmm... :s" 

So, still reeling and overwhelmed from what I had 'heard' and unable to cope with the mass of emotions and thoughts regarding what it meant, I decided to just shut it down; to push it back into the recesses of my mind, blocking it out and pretending it never happened.  It worked okay at first, but after a week or so of dealing with this gnawing in my heart and an intense battle with the memory and knowledge that kept pressing in no matter how hard I tried to block it, I broke down and told my Mother everything that had occurred on the beach. 

She laughed when I told her, between sobs, what God had said to me. In my apparent distress, she thought I was going to tell her that I was dying. (Obviously she did not comprehend the severity of my situation.) ;)

Thankfully, I have a very close relationship with my Mom and could talk to her about everything, and she was able to speak wisdom and sense to me when I wasn't making any. She was my best friend and the greatest help and comfort to me during this season. 

God spoke to me once more. 

A few days after I had confided in my Mom, I was praying and trying to talk to God in the same way that I had always done before. I had spent little time with Him since that day on the beach, as I was in rebellion towards what I knew to be His will for me.

In dismissing His will, I was dismissing Him. But my heart ached with longing for Him and that closeness we had. So, in an attempt to gain it back, I started to talk to Him about what was going on in my heart and my head and, trying to justify my actions and feign sincere ignorance, I told Him how upsetting this whole affair had been and how I truly did not know what His statement meant... how I was just so confused. I heard Him then, clearly, just as before... say to me, 

"You know exactly what it meant." 

So began my new life, altered by a knowledge of future events and a perpetual struggle to relinquish my will to God. Now, I'm sure my conflict is bewildering in view of the glowing description of my intended given earlier in the story. 

Only understand then that it was not fault with Rory that I struggled with, but faults in me. I esteemed him and his family to such a degree that I felt utterly unworthy to marry into that family and certainly unequal to Rory. 

I wanted him to have someone truly deserving of his adoration, someone who's achievements he could take pride in and who's passions and pursuits matched his own. 

While I knew how valued and precious I was in the eyes of God,

 I felt wholly insufficient to complete, let alone complement, this man. He needed someone smarter, prettier, more talented... someone more suited to him. I did not feel suited to Rory Cocks. 

So I struggled and argued the matter with God time and time again, always trying to help Him see and understand things as I did, but always conceding to His great wisdom and higher knowledge of Rory's true needs, as well as my own. Though I felt undeserving of him, I also felt that he was incompatible with me. I thought that he would be impatient at my want of accomplishment and expertise. and soon tire of me in my simplicity. I thought that a gentler, less impressive man would have more tolerance for me. I even had a "Husband Shopping List" that I had written up years before, detailing the type of man that I felt would be a perfect match for myself, and this I presented to God on numerous occasions, pointing out the obvious incongruities. :)

I had to submit myself to His will on a daily basis, and I came to realize how much more difficult that is to do once He actually reveals it.  I also needed to stop feeling so much and remove my focus from myself and Rory and place it Heavenward. 

This I did and continued to do... submitting..... trusting... then finally receiving peace. 

We continued to write back and forth in all this time. In fact, my struggle was intensified by the sudden tenderness and intentionality seeming to emanate from his letters since that weekend at his house. I tried to appear unconcerned and unaware of any alteration in him, and above all to keep my own feelings in check and reveal nothing of my recent conflict. We did not see one another again before he left for school, which he expressed regret over, but his letters betrayed evident attachment to me, and he departed with the promise of enduring friendship and the assurance that I would be greatly missed. So, we wrote letters, many letters, and God continued to work in my heart as I continued to surrender myself to Him. 

Winter was fast approaching, and with it, Rory, returning for the holidays. He was now a full fledged college student, excelling in his studies, making many friends and loving the warm Florida weather. It was apparent in the letters I received that he was enjoying this chapter of his life immensely. I was enjoying it too. Now that I was completely yielded and reconciled to God's will, peace was restored to my soul, and I found my love, affection and admiration for this man changing and deepening as the days went by. 

I was falling in love with Rory. And by the time Christmas arrived, I was ardently devoted and smitten from the top of my head to the tips of my toes! It was becoming more of a challenge to conceal my feelings for him. He, on the other hand, made no attempt at pretense. He thought I was a princess, or so that is what he called me. :) He liked me a lot and he all but said it. 

Christmas turned out to be magical! While we neither one confessed to feelings for the other, we both knew they existed, and the joy and pleasure of spending time together at long last, was unparalleled! It was the oddest sensation to suddenly have butterflies in my stomach and feel so incredibly anxious about seeing someone that I had known for years and seen innumerable times before. 

This was different. Now I loved him, and it was as though I had never seen him before. 

We managed to see one another several times over the holidays and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it! Rory returned to school in the new year and we resumed our correspondence. 

Winter turned to Spring, then from Spring to Summer, and once again Rory came home. Once again we experienced the delight of seeing one another and the joy found in being together! Only this time..... he told me so. :) 

Rory asked me to be his girl on July 8th of 2009!

This time were often irksome and disheartening as we spent most of it apart rather then together. Rory returned to school in Florida in the Autumn and then left there to join the US Navy in January of the following year. I saw him over Christmas, then not again until the end of March, when he graduated from bootcamp. 

After bootcamp, he was stationed in Great Lakes Illinois, where he attended Corps School for several months before graduating from there and finally making it home for a visit and a proposal to me. :D YAY!! 

*insert little happy dance here*

God was so good though, so faithful, and so present with both of us every step of the way, during every season of our relationship! He started it, so He handled it too. The love that resonated inside of me and exhibited power when I employed it, was not something that I could do or make happen on my own. The intensity and extent of God's love just blows me away! 

The love that He put in Rory's heart for me was unbelievable! I never knew that someone could love me in that way. He was head over heels crazy about me, and it was apparent! He told me that I was his rare gem, his precious jewel, and that there was no one else like me in all the world. 

The love and adoration he had for me radiated from him, poured from his eyes, and manifested itself in his behaviour toward me. While I had saved myself and stored up all of my affection for my future husband, I had no promise that I would receive the same gift. But God is just so amazing! He kept Rory pure and steadfast for the day that He would bring us together. I was his first and only girlfriend, and the recipient of his first kiss!

 

Our first kiss took place on the beach when he proposed to me. I was truly his first love, as he was mine. God honoured our decisions to honour Him and follow his direction in our lives. He is so gracious! 

So, Rory proposed to me on August 23rd while we were walking on the beach in Wheatley's Provincial Park. :) Yep. The same beach where my life was first radically altered only two years before. ALSO! (you're gonna love this! :D) Where Rory first realized that he liked me and made up his mind to pursue me... two years before.... during that weekend in August..... on the day we all went to beach.

(Oh, the interesting tid bits you find out after you're engaged!) ;) Apparently God was speaking to both of our hearts that day! So, needless to say, that beach is very dear to both of us! (We even had our engagement pictures taken there later on.)
 

Oh, and I did say yes by the way. ;) I said yes, and then on June 25th of 2011, I said "I do."

 

Forever and ever, until death do us part! I say it everyday. And everyday I thank God that in His great wisdom and surpassing goodness, He loved me enough to give me Rory Cocks for my husband. We truly are a perfect match. He is my soulmate and very best friend.

 

 

 Our love seems to know no bounds, but emerges stronger and deeper as we grow as one, learning what it means to serve, to give yourself wholly to another and place them first. I love being a wife and helpmeet, and I love that I can keep getting better at it! I'm grateful that God's mercies are new every morning and that I always need them. 

 

Rory and I have now been married for 3 and a half years, and so far, our mission field has been primarily the United States. :) Who knows where else we might go?! Maybe we will be here forever. But no matter where we go or what we do, we are having the adventure of a lifetime! I am so blessed to be on this journey with the one my heart loves! He is truly the man of my dreams, and I.... am his princess.


Until Next Time,

~Mrs.Cocks❤