Heather Phillips & David Wood

by Heather (Phillips) Wood

I’m Heather, and I grew up in a large homeschooling family in the Chicago area. I graduated from high school when I was 16, and spent the next few years in the uncertainty of “what to do next,” while doing babysitting, cleaning and other odd jobs. From a child, God had given me a passion and desire for world missions. I knew that’s what I wanted to do eventually; the question was what to do now, how to get there.

For many years I had a desire to attend Appalachian Bible College, where my grandparents had been on the staff. Finally through several unmistakable events, God showed me that the time to go was now, that after years of waiting it was time for action and He was leading the way. At age 19, I enrolled as a freshman in the missions program at ABC, several states away from my home. I didn’t know a single person in the whole state, but I was thrilled to be there! I knew God was working in my life, and that was so exciting. I thought maybe I would meet a guy there, but it wasn’t really on my to-do list, and when I did meet my future husband, I was completely oblivious that he would ever come to mean anything to me.

The way we met was rather embarrassing: it was the beginning of the semester, and without a whole lot of work piled up yet, I opted to spend an afternoon attending the ABC Warriors soccer game. I was at the game, sitting by myself and feeling a little lonely when two rather outgoing girls offered to let me sit with them. They ended up being really good friends of mine that first year. They were at the game cheering for the goalie, a friend of theirs by the name of David. At that time, the Warriors were good on the offensive so David spent most of the game standing in the goal not really doing anything. I had never met him, and I had never seen him up close. I made a flippant comment that he was “just standing there looking nice”, and all I meant by it was that he wasn’t doing anything, but the girls sure made a big deal out of it!

The next day at lunch in the cafeteria, I went up to the table where my new friends were sitting, and David was at the table too. They turned to him and said, “This is the girl who said you looked nice!” I was terribly embarrassed that this guy I didn’t know would probably think that I was hitting on him when we were complete strangers! So I tried to dig myself out of the hole and stuttered something about the orange goalie shirt he was wearing looked nice, so ever after I was teased about him wearing orange. But I eventually worked my way into their “group” and became friends with David.

At this time, there was another girl who had pretty much laid claim on David, and nobody else was really allowed near him. It was hard not to like him; he is amazingly talented in sports, music, and just about everything he tries. He is kind and gentle, the kind of “nice guy” that every girl likes, but what attracted me the most to him was that he is incredibly wise. He had a way of making Scripture penetrate every part of life. I grew up in a Christian home and I had Sunday School answers for everything, but I didn’t know how to make them come alive in my own life, and that’s what David did for me that first year. He had been counseling his peers for years already. He also taught me a lot about friendship, as a lot of the friendships in the group went through a perpetual roller coaster, he was funny, he was smart – the smartest person I had ever met. He was a high school valedictorian, freshman taking senior level classes, and he was taking Biblical Greek. Worst (or best?) of all, he was the only other person in the group who had been homeschooled, and he lived in the area so we regularly went to his house and spent time with his parents.

David did a lot to take me from a naïve homeschooled girl who thought she was “good” into a more wise, mature adult, and a lot of that was without him even realizing it. I had a lot of respect for him.

Despite all this, nothing happened between us. I secretly liked him, but it was nothing more than that; I was looking for a guy in missions, and he was only taking some classes at the Bible college before transferring out and eventually pursuing a degree in law. I’d had silly crushes before, so I didn’t think anything more of this one. Besides, due to the girl who “owned” him, I saw and heard less and less of him as time went on.

Our first year ended, and we went our ways. David transferred out, and I came back to ABC. I proceeded to take Biblical Greek with the hopes that one day I could be as smart as David. We rarely kept in touch, and when we did see each other it was kind of awkward due to the way the end of freshman year left things with the whole group. My heart ached, it missed him, and missed seeing his familiar blue car roll into campus.

Eventually I made other friends. I went in and out of a couple relationships, guys who met, talked with my dad, did some things right, some things wrong, and nothing worked out. Honestly? Knowing David had set such a high standard in my mind for what I wanted in a guy, and nobody else was getting close to that standard. I knew one thing. I wanted nothing to do with dating, and courtship wasn’t really working either. I just wanted to marry my best friend, without all the trouble and trappings of “being in a relationship.” I was really good friends with several high quality guys (most of them already spoken for). Those friendships though, must inevitably end, and every time, it just hurt, and I feared being single forever. By the time I ended my junior year at college, I was sad and hurt, and I begged God – “Please don’t let me get close to any other guy until it is my husband.”

I began my second summer camp counseling at the camp associated with the college – the same camp where David had spent most of his teen summers working in the kitchen and lifeguarding. About a month into camp, a familiar blue car started appearing on campus, and sure enough, a familiar face on the lifeguarding chair. At first, we barely talked. We had hardly kept in touch for two years, and I didn’t think he had any interest in friendship with me anymore, not after all that had happened. Still I occasionally came by the pool to say hi, and he was just as nice as always. Then eventually I came to him when I was upset about things, because he was always wise, always ready to counsel. I loved my fellow counselors that summer, so most of the weekends I hung out with them rather than David, and only occasionally I invited David to join us. It was pretty slow going, building our friendship back up. But we talked more and more as the summer progressed.

The last week of camp, we sat in his car and he told me to keep in touch. “I don’t want you going to the other side of the world without me knowing where you are,” he said. Wow, I thought. I guess we’re finally friends again!

Our senior year began with me back at ABC and him at school in Tennessee, five hours away. I had the advantage of being in the same town as his parents – occasionally, he came to visit on weekends! I started a ministry with international students from Nepal who attended the university on the other side of town. David’s sister teaches English as a Second Language there to the same students. I spent a lot of time with my Nepali friends, thoroughly enjoying the mission field in my back yard. Coincidentally, David and his sister also did the same thing. One of our greatest common interests was these awesome Nepali students!

In January, I was back from Christmas break before David left to go back to school. I got a little behind in my classes those first two weeks, because I was spending nearly all my time with him and the Nepalese. One evening shortly before he left, we went out to eat together. This wasn’t that unusual, since we were friends and often ate out with his parents. We sat at a Mexican place and talked for four hours. One of the questions that came up was, where do you see yourself in ten years? He saw himself with a little family, a good law job, and a happy suburban American life. I saw myself likely single, in a little village in hopefully Nepal, eating rice and sharing Jesus Christ. Our two dreams couldn’t be further from each other. Never once did we state to each other the possibility of a relationship. There simply wasn’t one. I was convinced that after graduation, I would never see him again. I had already signed up to spend my summer after graduation in Africa with some missionaries.

That semester, we talked on the phone almost all the time. I read his homework to him over the phone (which just so happened to be Jane Eyre, which I had a copy of). We often stayed on the phone all night. David was my best friend. I was trying to be careful with my heart, because I had prayed that God would not let me get close to another guy until it was my husband, but it was so hard to not be friends with David. After all, this was the last semester we would even BE friends!

One of my closest friends at school was my former roommate, Rachel, who was by then married. She kept asking me about David and I told her the things I firmly believed: we would never work out, we had different paths in life, I didn’t even know if he liked me, we would never see each other after this semester. Rachel pretty much told me that I was only fooling myself. She was a school teacher and her husband was going in to seminary. She told me that God was using those two things together, and He could use law and missions together. I liked David, and I wanted to think about the possibility of us working out together, but I wanted to be careful and I didn’t want to get too attached to the idea.

I went home on spring break, and during the course of the week, I had breakfast out with my dad. He asked me about the phone bill. I gulped and said I had been reading David’s homework to him. “I really like David,” he said. Inwardly, I flipped out! My dad had met David once, three years before. For two years, I had barely mentioned his name to my family. And here, my dad is sitting in front of me, going on about how highly he thinks of David. I kept trying to change the subject. I asked him, “What would you think if I married someone who wasn’t in missions, but who I know would be spending every day of their lives in everything they are doing, serving God wholeheartedly?” He said that he didn’t see anything wrong with it. Maybe Rachel was right? My dad’s verdict on the questions that my heart had been wrestling with was huge in helping me come to grips with the fact that my relationship with David could be something God was doing.

Basically having my dad’s complete approval for a relationship with David, without even mentioning his name, I began to have a little hope for the two of us for the first time.

This conversation with my dad was really important to me. I firmly believed that if David was the husband for me, that God would work it out, just like He had worked everything out for me to attend ABC. I felt that if God was bringing me and David together, I wanted to honor Him by doing things above board in this relationship (unlike previous relationships). I didn’t have to hide things, but was free to do them right.

I can’t remember now where it fits into the timeline of things, but somewhere during this time, our schools both held Junior/Senior banquets. I had kind of gotten David to ask me to my own banquet, and in the same night he asked me to his. One of the main reasons he asked me to his was so that he wouldn’t be obligated to ask one of the girls at his school, who were ravenous for dates to the event. At first, I was just going to go, but the more I thought about it and how I wanted to listen to God and do things right, the more I felt like I should ask my dad for permission before I drove 5 hours to go on a “date” with David. I was terrified he would say no and then I wouldn’t be able to go! Amazingly, though, he thought it was fine and his only concern was me driving that far by myself. David’s parents ended up driving me down. I just couldn’t believe how my dad was acting. “Who is this man,” I thought, “and what has happened to my dad?!” I had an amazing weekend with David in Tennessee, and to this day it is one of my favorite memories of us together. It was on this trip that we began memorizing Ephesians together.

Even though my heart was starting to change, I knew I couldn’t exactly call David up and say “Hey, it’s ok if we fall in love!” Hardly my place! We had never really talked about our friendship, and never defined our non-relationship to each other. I began to pray that David would bring up the topic to me, because even though I was bursting at the seams, I felt it wasn’t my place to bring up the topic to let him know how I had changed.

Two weeks later, it happened. We were on the phone all night again, and had talked about everything else. At about 4 in the morning, I was drifting off to sleep on the phone. “What do you think of our relationship?” he said. I could hardly breathe. God had answered my prayer! I wanted him to go first answering the question, and he wanted me to go first. Finally it came out that he was praying about it! I told him what my dad had said. The next month before graduation I often had to listen to David insist that he wanted to make an objective decision, that we should stay objective and not let our hearts get entangled in the decision, that he was praying about it. Besides, there was no point in getting in a relationship now, when I was going out of the country all summer. We’ll pick up the conversation when I get back. I let him talk, and I prayed too; but the truth was, that I was long past objective. I was really in love with this man.

We graduated on the same day, and after his graduation he came home with his family and came over to the lodge where my family was staying before leaving the next day. I didn’t know when I would see him again. I cried. I think it took my mom a little off guard for David to come and spend all this time with us. Apparently, my dad hadn’t done a whole lot of communicating to her!
I was to leave for Africa three weeks after graduation. Shortly after I got home, I received a surprise phone call – David asked if he could come up for a week before I left? I was going to see him again after all! He did come and had a really good time with my family. It helped me face the long summer out of country with likely no communication a little better.

Well once again, I had feared the worst and my expectations were wrong. Where I was in Africa, I not only had electricity, but internet, and sure enough, David and I were on Skype every day in between my ministry and his lifeguarding again. While I was in Africa, he talked to my dad almost weekly, and his dad even called mine once to talk about David and my relationship. This was the only time our dads ever talked to each other; we had no idea then that they would never meet in person on this side of heaven. David and I started talking about our lives together – we wanted kids, we would homeschool. Things like that. At one point in the summer, I really broke down. The uncertainty was getting to me – we still weren’t in a relationship. “I just want to be engaged!” I cried to him, but I knew nothing could happen when I was on a different continent.

The long summer eventually ended, and I went home. Two weeks after arriving home, I had a plane ticket to go visit David. He was already settled in to his first semester at law school before I got back into the country. My dad was a little nervous about me spending the weekend with him with no parents around (I stayed with some girls down the hall), but I wasn’t nervous because I knew I could trust David explicitly. I just hoped he would ask me to be his girl, whether that was dating or courtship or WHAT IT WAS. What I didn’t know, was that he was looking for an opportunity to propose to me.

I got off the plane and began walking through the terminal. It was almost more than I could believe when I saw David standing there. How I had missed him! How I was in love with him! He wrapped his arms around me and we stood there in the terminal for several minutes in each other’s arms, laughing, talking, finally together. I brought him his souvenirs from Africa and showed him all the pictures and video. We went to his law classes, went on walks around campus, I cooked for him, we talked a lot, and even met up with his parents for a show. On Saturday, for the first time he told me “I love you.” It was wonderful. I knew I was going to marry him someday. We always loved stars, so when the Sunday night was a clear night, we went out for a walk.

We found a bench with a beautiful view of the campus and the lit up fountain, and looked at the stars, praising God together and talking of his greatness. A fog was starting to lift off the grass, and the whole view was fairylike. Then I got a silly idea, and David insisted on knowing what it was. “I just thought we could go out there on the grass and dance under the stars.” Of course he didn’t think it was a silly idea, so we went out and danced under the stars (although we barely knew how to dance). We stopped dancing and he just held me in his arms.

“This is long overdue,” he said. “I have a question for you. Will you marry me?”

My face broke out into a grin I couldn’t contain. I said yes, and the realization that I was engaged washed over me. My dad already knew he was going to ask me that weekend, but my siblings didn’t know, and I certainly hadn’t. I, who always thought I’d be single forever, was actually getting married, and to someone I had never been in a relationship with!

One of the things that confirmed to me over and over again that God had brought us together was that everybody who heard we were engaged only had good things to say about the two of us together. I went to college in the town that David grew up in, and the professors I respected had known David from childhood. He was well known for his character and hard work, and those who had questioned previous relationships I was in wholeheartedly endorsed my engagement to David. (Our Greek professor even traveled to Chicago to perform the wedding for us.) Furthermore, David’s parents later confided in us that they had always liked me since freshman year since I was different from the other girls. Apparently they were pretty mad one day when I brought another guy over to their house, although they were kind to him at the time!

To a lot of people, the engagement was the first that they had heard of any sparks between us. David was off campus during the time our relationship deepened, so a lot of people were surprised to find out we were getting married. I was also at peace with it because I had known David’s character myself for three years before I fell in love with him. Not once in our nine-month long distance engagement (or in the eight months we’ve been married ) did I question or doubt that God had made us for each other. He had heard our prayers and crafted a beautiful love story for us, despite ourselves!

Sadly, halfway through our engagement, my dad suddenly was taken home to heaven. I was crushed. My future in-laws were kind enough to fly David up to be with me for the funeral. When I was 13, I had made a cross stitch for my dad that said “My Heart Belongs to You”. I had made it with the intention that it would be given to my husband some day. I chose to include that in the wedding ceremony, as a way to include and honor my dad. I gave a short speech telling about the cross stitch and explaining to our guests that I had my dad’s full blessing to fall in love with David. Then my mom and oldest brother presented the cross stitch to David.

We had a beautiful wedding, which was another thing that God brought together perfectly. These past months of married life have been the happiest time of my life. Every day I am thrilled and thankful for the opportunity to live with my best friend and take care of him.

When you let go of trying to do things your way, God is free to do something very beautiful with your life.