Apprentice

This is hard for me to capture in blog form, news like this is more easily broken in person and then more and more detail added through casual conversations, slowly adding colour to the picture over time to help you imagine the event. I’ll give it a shot anyway.

On Monday the 26th of April, I proposed to Sarah (many of you have already had the pleasure of meeting her). There you go.

A bit more detail is in order I suppose. First – the proposal (I’ll write about more details later):

It was an ordinary sunny day in Dublin. I arranged to meet Sarah for lunch because she had a half day that day. We decided to have a picnic in the Iveagh Gardens in Dublin. If you’ve never been to the Iveagh Gardens I highly recommend it – it’s a secret garden in the middle of Dublin many people walk right past it without even noticing. We picked a spot in a quiet area to sit down. I deliberately tried to find a quiet area because I knew what was coming up next, I wanted to give us some privacy so Sarah would feel free to decline my proposal if she wanted – as certain as I was that I should ask, I know that Sarah is very much her own woman and would say no if she felt the timing wasn’t right.

Here’s Sarah pointing at the very ordinary looking spot of grass where we had our picnic and I proposed. The picture was taken the following Sunday when we went back to the park for another picnic after I preached at a nearby church:

The spot where I proposed to Sarah.

So it was an ordinary spot on an ordinary day, the reason for this is because I was very much focused on surprising Sarah. I tend to give the game away when it comes to surprising Sarah – excitement or uncertainty will often lead me to announce a potential surprise, or ask Sarah if she would like something before I get it for her. So this time I was determined to surprise Sarah. And I did. The poor girl. Although Sarah said yes (when she caught her breath) the first time, she made me ask her again (thankfully saying yes again) because the first time was such a blur. I know now that there is a pressure point on a man’s knee that empties his head of all prepared speeches as soon as pressure is applied there when he goes down on one knee (or up as it was in my case since we were having a picnic on the grass) to propose.

Since then we’ve been overwhelmed by the joy and enthusiasm of our friends and family as they celebrate with us. We’ve been making plans for the big day and looking forward to our future together with a greater sense of commitment and We’ve been reading a lot of marriage preparation material. Sarah is having her ring ‘ooh-ed’ and ‘ahh-ed’ over. I think she’s enjoying that.