The Story of Us

This Friday marked Nick and my fourth wedding anniversary. In the best of ways I feel like we've been together since the beginning of time and yet, it still feels like only yesterday when we met as young college students. I still have to take a double take at the calendar's reminder that we've been together a full four years (five if you include dating). We've crammed a lot of life (and life change) in those 4 years and I can't imagine what we'll be in store for in the years to come.

I found it only fitting in lieu of our special day to share Nick & my love story.


I can attribute the story of us to events that took place years before we even met, which is so special. Nick and I have no doubt that God was working on our love story long before knew each other!

One of the earliest links to "the story of us" goes all the way back to when I was in high school. I was home-schooled much of my education, the exception being sixth grade when I went to a public school and my junior year of high school when I went to a private Christian school. My junior year was a rough ride at times; entering into a small private school where many of the students had established relationships as early as pre-school made it a particular challenge trying to fit in and find a place of my own. I found my niche instantly in choir class, much of the reason being the warmth I received from my amazing choral director, Karen Greseth. Karen was a nurse and mom to three boys who attended the school who was following her dream to obtain a music ed degree. Her connection to the school and need to student teach to complete her degree program put her in charge of the music department for the one year I was a student. Karen encouraged me to try out for music competitions (district, state, choir, etc.)- something that was foreign to me as a home-schooler because we were not allowed to compete- as well as audition for the small ensemble group at the school. I loved being a part of anything she lead. As spring was coming around the corner, we prepared for state competition and Karen was confident that I should sing Debussey's Romance, quite a big undertaking for both teacher and student, as I had never sung French (or spoken it that matter) nor had she taught something so difficult. As the week of competition rolled around, Karen brought in her own voice teacher, Ellen Bottorff, to critique and add instruction where needed. Ellen struck me as a polished and highly competent teacher.

Fast forward a few years as college was on the horizon. I'd spent the entire period in between applying and auditioning into music programs at schools around the nation who offered degrees in contemporary Christian music. I was convinced of two things about college. First, I knew where I would go to college would greatly shape my worldview. Secondly, I felt strongly that I would most likely meet my future husband in college. With those two thoughts weighing heavily in the decision, I felt it was a necessity to go to a Christian college. It goes without mentioning, I had no desire to go into debt to pay for school and I knew that God would provide a way to go where He wanted me. As good as I felt my auditions went at my top five schools, doors were not opening financially. So as not to lose the momentum, I decided to attend the local state college in my hometown, where I received an almost-full ride in academic and music scholarships. While the idea was less than thrilling staying in town, I was eager to stay under the instruction of my violin teacher, Terry Brock, who had taught me at the college all through high school. It goes without mentioning that I thought going to Missouri Western was a temporary situation, to be taken on a semester by semester basis, until I found "the" school I was meant to be at.

As my first semester was soon approaching, I signed up as a commercial music major and made a request to specifically be one of Ellen Bottorff's voice students since I had appreciated her feedback my junior year as I was preparing for state. Little did I know, that one request would have a monumental effect on the future!

As the school year began, I realized how staunchly liberal the music dept. really was. What a breath of fresh air to find out that the voice teacher I requested was a Christian! My first semester voice lessons turned into long talks about faith and campus life and seldom did much else take place during our scheduled lessons. I became heavily involved in Campus Crusade for Christ and CCF and was pretty outspoken about my activities with both groups. In fact, most all of my college friendships were ones associated with campus ministries. Besides campus ministry, I also worked a part-time retail job, taught violin lessons on campus, and performed music therapy through hospice as community service work, so life was really busy, but enjoyable.

One of my favorite music classes was a vocal performance class that only had six or seven people in it. The class required lots of feedback and we would perform songs in front of each other each week. Nick was one of the few guys in the class. It's funny as we've talked about it in retrospect that neither of us thought anything of each other, especially since we sat next to each other for both semesters of the class (and we were also in several other classes together). At the time, Nick was full-fledged into music activities, having leadership positions in the music fraternity he was in as well as being in every vocal and instrumental ensemble there was for scholarship purposes. He was also driving back home (KC) to be with family on the weekends. It may be due to our busy schedules and having different social circles that we brushed shoulders so often and yet thought nothing of it. In fact, I think the first time I even gave Nick a second thought was for something silly, like looking at his handwriting and thinking, "He's got really good penmanship" or "Hmm... Nick Greenlee... that's a nice sounding name". But that was that!

It wasn't until the end of my first semester, that we developed mutual friends within the music dept. (or rather, I joined his social circle... Nick was one year ahead in school and had developed friendships there earlier). Both of us still did not show any interest in the other. Nick was (and is) relatively introverted unless he's with a group of people he knows well, so it wasn't until I'd been out with our friends on numerous occasions before I noticed his sense of humor and personality shining through somewhat. As the end of the semester was approaching, I continued to look at other colleges, convinced I was supposed to be elsewhere. As I continued to do college visits and auditions for scholarships I found myself frustrated that the finances were not falling into place. Sometime during my freshman year I felt a huge desire to attend Belmont in Nashville, visited the campus, loved it (as did my parents), yet also was so discouraged that they did not offer scholarships for transfer students and really didn't want transfer students in their program. It was obvious another semester at MoWest was in order.

As my second semester started, Ellen confided in me that Nick (who was also one of her students) was having a hard time finding other Christians on campus to connect with. At that time, he was getting paid by the music department to sing at a Presbyterian church downtown, which prevented him from getting involved in a local church, and most all of his friends in the music department that at one time professed to be Christians started living lifestyles that said otherwise. Until this point in time, Nick had been riding the fence about how his faith would impact his life but something clicked that year- without a home church, without mentorship, and without a close Christian companion- that he didn't want to be a Christian in name only. He wanted to know more about the Bible and what a faith lived out looked like. He also realized the lifestyle he demonstrated would most likely attract a girl with similar values and it was his desire to date and marry a Christian girl. Nick voiced this to Ellen in a lesson, who in turn passed some of his concerns on to me (obviously excluding the marriage issue), hoping that I would get to know him and encourage him to get involved in Campus Crusade or another campus ministry.

I have to be honest. At first the prospect of encouraging him to come to a campus ministry thrilled me. I viewed him more as a missions project than anything. Then after realizing I hadn't really gotten to know him well one on one before, it occurred to me that he could possibly misconstrue my desire to help him get connected with other Christian students as being flirtatious. The first time I singled him out after choir to invite him to a Crusade meeting, I brought another guy from Campus Crusade alongside just to make things seem less awkward. Nick appeared interested and showed up that Wednesday, and then the next, and the next, each time bringing a friend or two. Between his attendance at Crusade and our mutual activities and friendships in the music department, we began to share more common ground and with that spawned on some conversation between the two of us. As spring break was approaching, I decided to call up some friends to see if we could all go out to eat after our last class. The last on the list was to call Nick. I expected the conversation to be short, just to let him know what we were doing and see if he'd like to join us. What a surprise when we found so many things to talk about, the conversation ended up being several hours long! I was intrigued and surprised by Nick's candor and honesty. He didn't try to put on appearances or be someone he wasn't to impress me. He was humble about his talents and interests, eager to learn more about me, and fortunate for me, a tremendous listener (which as you can tell is necessary as I can be long-winded!). We talked about our families, our schooling, our mutual interests (mostly music and entertainment), and our faith.

I had always dreamed of my future prince charming being someone who was much more mature in his faith than I was. Nick was definitely a young Christian, but his earnestness and passion was unlike anyone's I had ever encountered. I found myself growing to fall for what I had earlier deemed the object of my missions project! As we continued to get to know each other, it was always in the context of being in a group, though we found ourselves singling each other out to talk. Within a relatively short time, it was obvious we both felt a strong interest in each other. I can still remember the shock and elation I felt when Nick called me to let me know his feelings for me and his interest in getting to know me better if I was interested. Of course, I was, and I was even more impressed that he wanted to go to my dad to get his permission to date me.



Neither Nick nor I had ever dated anyone previously and with no emotional baggage in tow, we moved relatively quickly by most standards. Within a month's time we both knew we had found "the one" in each other, though it took several months for my parents to come to the same conclusion (I'm convinced that it was because I was the firstborn and still living at home, that they were not as on board at first as we were!). In fact, Nick and I talked about getting engaged constantly by late fall... what I hadn't realized was, Nick had already asked my dad's permission and my dad's answer was so ambiguous, Nick didn't know if he got a yes or a no! The second time they got together the response my dad gave was, "I'm more in an observation state right now", to which Nick thought to himself, "Well, I'm more in a ready-to-get-married state!". It wasn't until December that Nick received my dad's blessing and he prepared to propose that Christmas. It was probably a terrible challenge for Nick to prepare a surprise proposal because he wanted to involve my whole family. Living at home, it's a wonder word didn't get out through one of my younger siblings. I had it in me that a proposal would be in order around Christmas just due to how much we had been talking about marriage, so while I can't say his proposing was a surprise, how he did it most certainly was.

Nick found out through my mom that I loved scavenger hunts and he prepared an elaborate one with her help around my parents' property. It's funny I couldn't tell it earlier what was happening! My mom mentioned that she wanted to make a big Christmas brunch, but it seemed to be taking forever. She asked me to go out and get milk (which was a challenge because NO place is open on Christmas). Then she asked me to go to my grandma's house (who lives next door) and sing for her and her guest (which may seem like a silly request but my family is musical and it was something ordinary we would do growing up). My grandma is sweet as pie but doesn't have a musical bone in her body, so I was shocked when after I sang a song for her she started critiquing me and then asked me to do it again! Three times I ended up doing this one song for her and with that she let me go. When I got back to my parents' house, I was met at the front door by my mom, holding a video camera, and a silver platter with a note on it, explaining that I was going to play a scavanger game to get a really good prize. Of course, by this point I already knew that it must have been the start of Nick's proposal, but I was totally taken off guard that my mom kept asking me to leave the house earlier to get grocery items and my grandma kept asking me to sing so that it would buy Nick some time to help lay out clues around my parents property and decorate their whole basement in twinkle lights, rose petals, candles, and music! The clues had me running inside and out of my parents' house, the last clue leading me to my brother Alex's room, where he was sitting there waiting for me. As I asked him if he had another clue, he just smirked and took my hand to escort me to the basement where he said, "Your treasure awaits!". I followed a trail of flowers, candles, and Christmas lights to where Nick was, in full tuxedo with a box in his hand!



As they say, the rest really is history! Five months later in May we became Mr. & Mrs. Greenlee. Our wedding was a dream... remember that wonderful choir teacher of mine at the Christian school? Well, one of her sons ended up becoming a phenominal musician and he lead us into worship before our wedding ceremony took place. The minister at our church that discipled Nick and led our small group married us. My violin teacher at the college, along with three other colleagues provided beautiful violin serenades throughout the wedding. We wrote our own special vows. And at the end, we sang to each other Stephen Curtis Chapman's I Will Be Here.



So much has gone on in the four years since, there isn't enough time to talk about it but I am amazed and thankful at God's goodness and providence in bringing us together. It's ironic that I was so emphatic about going to college somewhere else in hopes of finding a good Christian guy, when God was preparing one right where He planted me! More surprising is how He has humbled me in my attitude as a wife. As I had mentioned earlier, I initially viewed Nick as my missions project. Later, I had a terribly prideful attitude, thinking that I had so much to show him about living the Christian walk simply because I was raised in a strong Christian home where it was modeled for me. What I grew to realize over time was that I held tightly to a lot of legalistic thinking, maybe at times worshiping moralism more than I really did Jesus and His grace towards me. If anything, it's Nick who has taught me, stretched and challenged my thinking on things, and helped me grow more in love with Jesus.

I am so thankful for these past four years and look forward to many more with such a wonderful hubby.

Love you, Sweetie!