EP 41: How I Met My Husband

This is birthday week for our family: my daughter’s birthday is the 20th, mine’s the 21st, my husband’s is the 22, and we met on the 23rd. That last point — the story of how I met my husband — is the topic of today’s podcast. 

How I Met My Husband

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Hello friend, welcome to episode 41 of Loving Life at Home. Today is April 22nd, which happens to be my husband’s birthday. In fact, this is birthday week for our whole family. My youngest daughter’s birthday is April 20th, mine’s the 21st, Doug’s is the 22nd, and he and I met on the 23rd.

That was way back in 1986, just one day after he turned 19, and two days after I turned 21. So, just as I promised a couple of weeks ago, today I’m going to share with you the whole story about how I met my husband for anyone who might be interested in listening.

It’s the beginning of a wonderful love story that has only grown fuller and richer with every passing year.

Not for lack of trying…

Now, April 23rd is the day that we celebrate our meeting because that was the date of our first substantial conversation. But we’d been on the same college campus, Dallas Baptist University, for a year by that time, and Doug had actually tried before to introduce himself to me but was so smooth in the way he went about it that I hadn’t the foggiest idea that he was carefully orchestrating those meetings.

So, the first time he approached me was in the school cafeteria. I was seated at a table by myself, grabbing a quick bite to eat before heading to an evening class. But as soon as he walked in, Doug noticed I was alone.

I was sitting at a little four-top table, and he asked a mutual friend of ours named Tony to go and sit across from me. That way, when Doug came out of the food line holding his tray, he made a big show of looking around for a place to sit, then spotted his friend and came over, joined him, asked if there was anybody sitting there, and had Tony introduce him to me.

Unfortunately, I had no idea that the whole thing had been staged and assumed that Doug was there to discuss something with Tony. So, when another friend of mine, Eric, came over and took the fourth seat at our table, I spent the entire time talking to him to give the other two guys space to have their own conversation.

So, that didn’t really work out as planned.

Then, the second time that we met was during a time — I think I’ve told you before that when I was in college, I used to give free haircuts to the guys on campus that couldn’t afford one otherwise.

And so, there was a little hallway in the co-ed that had windows facing the parking lot, and I would set up shop there, and guys would line up (the ones that needed haircuts) once a month, I would cut everybody’s hair.

And so, Doug had evidently seen me through the windows, the plate glass windows, and came over to investigate and walked up and said, “Hey, can I be next?”

And I said, “Sure, get in line.”

I remember saying that, and for whatever reason, he didn’t get in line. So, I can’t see that that was really my fault that that conversation didn’t go anywhere because I was 100% ready to cut his hair (I cut all the guys’ hair that asked me to). But he didn’t stick around.

And so, that conversation fizzled too.

His reputation preceded him…

Fortunately, though, my sister had a class with Doug. There’s only two of us in our family. I only have one sister. And she and I went to the same college. I was two years ahead of her.

She’s Doug’s age, and they were both incoming freshmen and ended up having, I think, a biology class, something in the science department. They were in class together.

And so, fortunately, she came home one weekend and was telling my mom about different people she had met in class, and she started talking about this young man, Doug Flanders, who was pre-med. He’s really, really smart. Tall, dark, handsome. I don’t remember what else she said that night, maybe something about him being friendly or funny or a great conversationalist. I really don’t remember.

But I’m really glad that she had class with him because his schedule did not intersect with mine at all.

As I’ve mentioned before, my dad made having a bachelor’s degree a prerequisite to receiving his blessing on any future marriage plans that I might have. I didn’t want that to be a holdup, and I just knocked myself out trying to get through as quickly as possible.

So, by the semester that I met my husband, all I had left was a handful of electives, including a course in nutrition that met one evening a week. That’s the one I was going off to the time he met me in the cafeteria. And I can’t remember, maybe a statistics course. It was only about 12 hours by that last semester.

Making beautiful music…

But one of the classes that I was taking was– I was singing with a touring group that represented Dallas Baptist and sang in area churches and at different events. And so, actually, that was what attracted me to Dallas Baptist in the first place.

This touring group came to my church when I was in high school and sang for the church. And I got to talk to some of the people that were from that college. That’s what put DBU on my radar.

Actually, it was DBC at that time. It hadn’t even gotten university status when I started. So, Dallas Baptist College, I thought, oh, this is close to home. And I had my SAT scores sent there. And they called and offered me a full scholarship. And so, of course, I’m going to say yes.

And that’s where I ended up going to school.

But anyway, I had always thought that it would be really great to sing with this touring group, this Day Spring, that had first come to my church. I wanted to do the same thing, but I didn’t want to do it every single semester I was there because I knew that music courses ended up demanding a lot of hours for very few hours of credit.

Anybody that’s ever taken piano or choir or composition classes, they can tell you, it is a lot of work for not a lot of hours as far as school credit goes. And so, I did definitely want to sing with Day Spring. But I wanted to get all my other coursework behind me first.

So, I worked, worked, worked, and got through taking, I think I told you before, as many as 27 hours in a single semester so that I could be done with that degree and mark that off my list of things that I had to do before I was allowed to marry. And so, I saved even trying out for Day Spring until my final semester.

So, that semester, I was singing with this touring group. And it just so happened that we sang in chapel a couple of weeks before graduation. And after our performance, I went back to the co-ed, which was in the middle of the girls’ dorms, this co-ed area.

The boys were not allowed into the girls’ rooms, but they could come to this little meeting area in the middle of the three dorms. And we’d have movie nights and stuff like that in this big common area.

And so, I had gone back to that common area and was sitting there. I remember distinctly, I was looking at my calendar. Graduation was coming up. I was making plans for the future. And at the time that Doug walked up behind me, I had my calendar flipped open to the back where I kept a list of frequently misspelled words.

And I was adding the word privilege to the list. Privilege, I always want to put a D before the G, and it does not have a D. And so, I was writing myself a reminder of how privilege is actually spelt: P-R-I-V-I-L-E-G-E.

And he came up and said, “Jennifer?”

And so, I turned and looked up at him, and he said, “My name’s Doug Flanders, and I just wanted to tell you that you sang really pretty today in chapel.”

And I said, “Oh, thank you.”

And he kind of stared at me a little bit and nodded and then turned to leave. About the time he did, it sunk in on what my sister had told me about this fellow student of hers named Doug Flanders. And so, I said, “Wait a minute. Did you say Doug Flanders?”

And he turns back around with this huge smile on his face and says, “Yes, I did!”

And I said, “I think I’ve heard about you.” And he came around to the front of where I was sitting at the couch and sat on the table right in front of me. And we started talking, and we talked, I kid you not, for three hours we talked that first meeting.

And he is such an animated storyteller — still is — and such a great conversationalist that I remember thinking, I wish that that conversation never had to end.

But eventually it did.

Parting is such sweet sorrow…

He said, “I’m so sorry, but I’ve got to go do my laundry.”

So I sadly said, “Well, it was nice meeting you” and waved goodbye. And he headed off across the parking lot.

Now, normally I studied either sitting in the co-ed or (usually) up in my room where I could have peace and quiet. This semester was a little different. Like I said, I didn’t have nearly the heavy course load that I had had in prior semesters.

So when he left, I decided for the first time in my three years on campus that I would just sit out on the front porch of the co-ed and study there. I had never done that the whole time we had lived there, but it would allow me to see which car he got into and keep my eye open for when he came back.

As fortune would have it, I am no good at cars at all. I know their color, and that’s about it. If you ask me what kind of car somebody drives, I might be able to tell you the color and basic shape, if it’s a van or a truck or a car. But I’m no good at cars.

My children are baffled by that because they know all the different cars, and so does my husband, but I don’t.

It worked out great, though, because his car was truly one of a kind. I don’t know what make it was. He could tell you. I really don’t know, but it was two-tone. It had a white roof, and then it had this neon blue body that looked like it had been painted with a can of spray paint.

It was really quite hideous, but it was transportation. It got him where he needed to go. So he got into this car that was so easy for me to spot.

I knew immediately when he left campus and got back on campus, and so I sat there studying all afternoon, hoping to get just one more glimpse of this smart, handsome young man who was so much fun to talk to. And before too long, a couple of hours passed, and I saw his car pull up on top of the hill, and he went and got a parking place.

But instead of getting out and walking with his clean laundry over to the boys’ dorm like I assumed he would, he got out, left the laundry in the car, and started walking straight for me, which delighted me but also startled me a little bit.

And he walked right up to the co-ed and to where I was sitting, and he said, “Oh, hi, Jennifer. I got you this,” and passed me a card. It was a belated birthday card that he had gotten while he was out, and it just said something to the effect that he really enjoyed our conversation and looked forward to having many more in the future.

So that was so sweet, and it really stole my heart right away because I am a big letter writer too, and this was, I thought, evidence that he was as well. Now, he doesn’t write that many letters now that we are married. I could probably count on one hand the number of real handwritten letters I’ve gotten since we exchanged vows. But back when we were in college — that was before texting and email and all that kind of stuff — and I graduated two weeks after we met, and he worked in Arlington all summer and went to school there, and I was back in Mesquite, although I did take some courses in Arlington.

Even though I had just graduated, I went ahead and took genetics over the summer just because I was interested in it, and I was (more importantly) interested in him, and he was taking it, so we took that course together over at UTA.

Gaging interest levels…

But he would write letters to me all the time that I really, really appreciated, and so at this point, I just thought, oh, he’s a letter writer, and he’s a friendly person, and that was really all, in my mind, that I thought was on his end of it.

I knew that I was very interested in him, but I didn’t dream that he’d really be interested in me.

First of all, I was two years and a day older than he was, which seemed like an insurmountable age gap to me at that time.

Second, my sister had always had a swarm of interested guys buzzing around her. Even in grade school, they would line up, vying for the privilege to carry her books home from school, and I, on the other hand, had perfected the science of repelling would-be suitors. If my nearly six-foot stature didn’t scare them off, all my direct questions about family planning and having children and homeschooling certainly did that job!

And then, third, I didn’t really date. It wasn’t a matter of principle so much as it was a statement of fact, but Doug was undeterred.

Everybody on campus knew I didn’t date, mainly because as a Bible-believing Christian, I knew that I would be expected to submit to whatever man I married, and I did not want to risk falling in love with somebody that didn’t share my values in life. I wanted to make that job of submission as easy as I possibly could by picking somebody that was going exactly where I wanted to go anyway, and so there just weren’t that many guys that I was confident I would want to follow, so I didn’t date, and Doug had heard that I didn’t date, and so his approach to me was, “Well, I know that you don’t date, so how can we spend time together so that I can get to know you?”

And that was the first inkling that he might actually be interested in me was when he asked me that question.

He said, “Would it be okay for us to study together, say, at the library?”

And I said, “Yes, I think that would be fine.”

He said, “What about going to church together? Could we go to church together? Attend services together?”

And I said, “Yes, that sounds fine, too.”

And he was just so suave that, before long, we were doing all those things together.

Falling head over hills for him…

The first time that we walked across campus to head to the library for a study session, I tripped on our way to the library. I just stumbled. I didn’t fall flat on my face, but I stumbled, and it was awkward and very noticeable, and Doug said, “Oh, my goodness, our kids are going to be so clumsy!”

Inside, I thought, our kids? Our kids? It was delightful to hear him say that, but outside, I said, “Our kids? Isn’t that a little bit presumptuous?”

And he said, “Oh, oh, I just mean, you’re clumsy; I’m clumsy. Your kids are probably going to be clumsy, and so will mine.” He covered for it, but he had already shown his hand, and I knew what he meant, and I was definitely thinking that direction by that time already as well.

And so we did find ways, creative ways to spend time together. We studied together. We attended church together, and we took classes, summer classes together.

I graduated two weeks later but, again, I took summer classes with him over at UTA. And then he signed up for an EMT (emergency medical technician) training course, down at Baylor. That was between Arlington and my house in Mesquite, and so I signed up for the same course, and we became EMTs together. And so we found ways to spend time together and to get to know one another and all that.

Well, my kids have heard all these stories more times than they can count, but I didn’t realize that they shared those stories with other people until a couple of months ago. I was in a group of other ladies, and one of them asked me about how I met my husband.

I was telling some of the stories of our meeting, and a mutual friend that was also there said, “Jennifer, Jennifer, tell them about the time you tripped and fell.”

I said, “How did you know I tripped and fell?”

And she said, “One of your girls told me about it. It’s such a sweet story. Tell everybody about what Doug said.”

I said, “Well, Doug wasn’t there for that.”

And this lady’s daughter on the couch audibly gasped, like that was destroying her picture of how it all went down!

But what they did not understand is how common an occurrence my tripping was. When I tripped with Doug, I didn’t fall. I just stumbled and caught myself. It was awkward, but I didn’t get injured or fall flat on my face or anything like that. But one time coming down the steps from the co-ed, it was snowy and icy, and I did. I was in a dress and high heels, and my feet flew right out from under me, and I did.

I tripped, and I fell, and I bounced down the stairs, and I ripped my hose, and it was all in front — this was before I met Doug — it was in front of a guy that I was interested in at the time. And I was just mortified.

But clearly this woman didn’t understand how common an occurrence it was that I would trip on campus. Doug was absolutely right: I was very clumsy, and it’s only by a miracle of God that our kids aren’t clumsy.

Actually, they’re all very well-coordinated. There’s one who wants to claim the clumsy title, but I think even she’s very graceful. But most of them are very athletic and very well-coordinated and do not take after their mother at all, so I’m grateful for that.

The Lord directs our steps…

Another interesting part of this story is how Doug was even on campus at Dallas Baptist to start with.

That’s interesting because he really is brilliant. He is such a smart man and graduated very high in his class and did really well in all his aptitude tests and SATs and ACTs and all that sort of stuff. But he was being raised by a Baptist preacher and a stay-at-home mom, so the idea of having thousands and thousands of dollars to send somebody to college was not a reality for him.

So when he was getting ready to apply, he had always dreamed of going to an Ivy League school, and I’m so grateful he didn’t because he would not be the same person today if he had gone to any of those liberal institutions. That would not be an asset in my mind. It would be a liability

But he really wanted to go to an Ivy League school, and his dad had told him, “Oh, you shouldn’t even bother applying…”

Not “because we can’t afford it.” He didn’t say that.

He said, “You shouldn’t bother applying because so-and-so’s son [whom my husband knows], so-and-so’s son applied, and he didn’t get into any of them, and he’s much smarter than you are, so you wouldn’t get in either.” That’s how he phrased it, which baffles me.

But the closest he could come to is just applying to schools in Texas, So he had applied to Rice and had gotten an academic scholarship to Rice. They offered him a full tuition scholarship, but it did not cover room and board.

So that was his plan — to go to Rice in Houston and study there. Whereas I, ever since Day Spring had come to my church, had planned on going to Dallas Baptist. So if we had both carried out the plans that we had made in our own hearts, then we might never have crossed paths.

But God’s ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and in his providence, Doug, who was on an academic decathlon team in high school, ended up having to travel to Dallas Baptist for one of the regional events or maybe even the state competition for academic decathlon. He doesn’t remember even filling out any kind of form for financial aid or application to be accepted there or not. We’re just assuming they got his name because he was on campus for this event.

But, again, he was all raring to go to Rice and didn’t even consider applying anywhere else in Texas. But he was sitting at home one day and got a letter from Dallas Baptist offering him a full-ride scholarship, not just for tuition and fees, but also for room and board. He started to tear that thing in half because, of course, he was going to Rice. That was already settled.

But he happened to remember his father’s words to him about how this other friend was so much smarter, and he just decided that he’d like to gloat a little bit and prove to his father that some people thought he was smart, even if Dad didn’t.

So he brings the letter to his father and says, “Look here, Dad, this college thinks I’m pretty smart. They’re willing to give me a full-ride scholarship!”

And his father looks over that letter and says, “Oh, what a provision from God! This is what you need to do. This is where you need to go. This is an answer to prayer. This is a sign from God, and you need to go to Dallas Baptist!”

Then Doug was backpedaling, “Wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! I’m already signed up to go to Rice. I’ve already made plans to go to Rice.”

And his dad said, “Listen, this place will pay for everything, and Rice was only giving you the tuition scholarship. We were going to have to really stretch to help you with the rest, but now it’s not necessary. You can go to Dallas Baptist, and it won’t cost us a cent.” So in his mind, it was made up.

In Doug’s mind, he’s thinking, Why, oh, why did I bother to show my father that letter? But, of course, God was even using that silly little bit of pride in my husband that wanted to prove a point to his dad to direct his steps.

The Bible talks in Proverbs 3:5-6, “So trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your steps.”

And then in Proverbs 16:9, it says, “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” We definitely see that at work in getting Doug to Dallas Baptist.

More answers to prayer…

Now, as I’ve mentioned before, I was really hoping to meet Mr. Right before I graduated. And by God’s providence, I did. But as graduation was nearing, I didn’t have any idea that that was going to be the case, and so I had had a couple of job offers.

My degree was in math, and I had contacts through a couple of professors for some very nice career-kind of jobs in actuarial science or the like. And so they were trying to talk me into taking a job.

I really, really didn’t want to get out in the workforce and have people think that a career was what was important to me because I really wanted to get married and have children and homeschool my kids, and so I looked at what I could do to buy some time until the right guy showed up, still not knowing that he was going to show up so soon, and I applied to do my master’s work at SMU.

SMU was also still there in the Dallas area, so I could live at home and attend class at SMU. They’d pay me a stipend. I could teach business calculus labs and go to school, and that would keep me busy for two more years. And maybe within the course of those two years, I would meet the man I was going to marry and not have to get out and get a job in the workforce. So that’s what I did.

And I had been accepted at SMU, and so that first year that we were dating (or pretending that we didn’t date but spending all of our free time together), that’s what I did. I went to SMU and taught business calculus labs, and meanwhile, we were doing everything we could to spend time together.

One of the first gifts that Doug ever gave me was a complete set of Charles Spurgeon sermons. I’m a big advocate for making sure there’s not more surprises than are necessary after you marry. We talked about everything under the sun before we ever married or even seriously considered — well, I can’t say that; we were already considering marriage the first week we met, obviously, individually.

But before we got too far and deep into those discussions about a possible future together, there were a lot of things that I wanted assurances about and to know where he stood on: things like family planning, whether he wanted to use birth control or was open to leaving that in God’s hands, whether he was open to homeschooling his kids or letting his wife homeschool his kids, whether he wanted his wife to be out in the workforce or whether he was okay with a stay-at-home mom, and also theology.

I was a firm believer in the doctrines of grace, and so we discussed a lot of Reformed ideas. And we would read Spurgeon’s sermons and the works of other great Reformers aloud to one another and discuss them. And we had lots of other productive conversations on many other important topics.

But the majority of those talks took place in the months that followed my graduation. Back in April, in the weeks immediately following our birthdays, we were busy with finals and end-of-the-year concerts and banquets, and we had to squeeze in conversations during study sessions or travel time to and from church.

So two weeks later, my parents are on campus for the graduation festivities and commencement exercises and that sort of thing, and so they got to meet Doug for the first time. And I remember my mother telling me that, as they left, she said, “Oh, no, I forgot to tell Doug it was nice to meet him.”

And my dad shook his head and said, “Don’t worry, Cherree, you’ll get another chance. I think we’re going to be seeing a lot more of that young man.”

And they did. We were engaged within a year. I talked about that a couple of episodes ago. I’ll link that in the show notes for you. And then we’re married the following August, and I’m so, so thankful that God orchestrated all of that just the way he did and is so good to provide.

I didn’t think I could be any happier or love Doug any more than I did the day I married him. But with each passing year, my respect for this man just grows deeper and deeper, and my love for him more and more full. And I’m so very grateful that God answered my prayers in giving me the husband he did.”

Thanks so much for listening today. If you have a question you’d like to hear covered on this podcast, message me on Instagram at @flanders_family or contact me through my website, lovinglifeathome.com.

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Until next time, I pray the Lord will bless your efforts to build a loving home life centered on him.