Five Years! Happy Engagement Anniversary to Us!

Five years ago today I was awoken early in the morning by someone knocking on the door of my bedroom where I was staying with the Holmgrens. It was Niklas. By this time we had been a couple for over six months. He whispered to me that I needed to put on lots of warm clothes and meet him downstairs for a surprise. After a month or so of wondering when this day would come, I knew it had finally arrived. He was going to ask me to marry him!!

This date in Sweden five years ago was the first Sunday of advent. The weather then was much like it is right now – gray, chilly, windy, raining lightly, and completely overcast. Not exactly romantic, you may think, but just wait…

Niklas whisked me away in his bright red 1987 VW Golf and told me our destination was a surprise. I pretty much knew where he would be taking me, though…Six months earlier, when we were trying to figure out our feelings for one another, Niklas took me to the coast for a long walk and a long discussion on a pier overlooking the ocean so that he could tell me what was on his heart. A week after that we walked along the same coast and walked out to the end of that same pier, but this time both completely in love and convinced that we were meant to spend the rest of our lives with each other (hey, a lot can happen in one week!). So it wasn’t too hard to figure out that our destination on this cold and windy day was that same stretch of beach and that same pier.

Loaded down with lots of blankets, an umbrella and a small box Niklas led me out to “the” pier, and the weather could most definitely NOT have been worse. It was miserably cold, the wind was blowing, there was a misty rain that blew against our faces and I couldn’t stop shivering. But as far as romantic goes, I couldn’t have asked for much more.

On the same pier where we had our first long talk alone together Niklas turned to me (I was covered in blankets, huddled under the umbrella and trying not to let my lips turn purple) and told me how blessed he felt by God that we had found each other, and how amazing it was to him the way God was going to take the two paths we had been on in serving Him and make that path one. And he took out the loveliest silver ring in which it had been engraved, “Niklas & Katie – Dec 2, 2001”.

We did some other things that day to celebrate our engagement—a way-too-fancy restaurant, delicious fika, our church service where we proudly showed off my ring—but what I remember best about that day five years ago are those moments under the umbrella, covered in blankets, looking at Niklas as he shared his excitement about our future together, both of our faces spattered with the cold rain blowing against us, but both of us feeling so unbelievably thankful for the love that God had given us for one another.

And now, five years later (and a LOT can happen in five years) we are proud to say that that is still what we are most thankful for! Happy Five-Year Engagement to Us!