We had been dating for three years. We had watched other friends meet someone new, start dating, get engaged, get married, and get pregnant in that time frame. And I was losing patience. Mostly because everyone else and their grandmothers were making me feel like Danny and I were supposed to be engaged by that point.

That Christmas, Danny gave me diamonds. Not an engagement ring. Earrings.I loved them. I still love them. I’m wearing them right now, in fact. But I was almost afraid to tell anyone — he got me diamonds, but they’re not for my finger, they’re for my ears. I felt like there was so much pressure to keep up with all the couples on their way to wedded bliss.

You see, Danny and I were at the point that we knew we wanted to get married one day — Danny just wasn’t quite sure that the time was right yet. But for me, waiting for that second diamond wasn’t easy, with stories of my friends’ boyfriends dropping down on one knee seeming to come as fast and furious as raindrops in a hurricane.

I should have simply trusted that, at the right time, it would happen. Because, you see, less than two weeks after he bought me a pair of diamond earrings, Danny went back for a diamond ring. And as soon as the diamond he selected was set and in his possession, it started burning a hole in his pocket, and he proposed the very night he picked the ring up from the jeweler. Getting engaged wasn’t about keeping up with other couples. It wasn’t about getting married because it’s the next logical step after you’ve been dating for a few years. It wasn’t about diamonds. It was just about knowing this was God’s plan for our life, and the timing suddenly felt right.

And it was a lesson for me that I need to be patient — because the plans I hope for often aren’t as lovely as the way things turn out.

In hindsight, waiting a little longer to get engaged than a lot of our friends was a very good thing for us: We got our relationship so well sorted out that by the time we got married, we had, as we joke, gotten all our arguments out of our system. Married life has been a breeze compared to when we were dating. So it’s become a bit of a personal parable. The Parable of the Three Diamonds. The Parable of Everything Happening at Just the Right Time. The Parable of Surrendering My Plans to Someone Whose Plans Are Better.

It’s a parable I need to hear every day, and a lesson I’m still struggling to learn.

And if you’re wondering, I was ecstatic when Danny gave me my ring. So ecstatic that I couldn’t even look at the ring itself for several minutes. I just hugged him. Because the things worth waiting for are even better than diamonds, and that’s a lesson I know by heart.

~ Laura