Written by Jamie Smith of Jamie’s Thots.

I have to admit, I’m almost embarrassed sometimes to tell people that I met my husband on MySpace. Considering the site’s reputation and the
general perception that people seem to have of relationships that start online, part of me wants to say “wemetonMyspacebutitistotallylegitimate.”

Yes, all fast and together like that.

The truth is, meeting online is not so uncommon any more. It’s not just the people looking for a green card or people who don’t feel comfortable
interacting with the opposite sex unless they are behind a computer screen. As online interactions become more interwoven throughout our life
experience, it almost seems inevitable that people will meet their soul mate through some kind of social media or online experience.

But I digress.

Let’s start at the beginning.

In late 2006 and 2007, I was going through some of the most difficult times of my life. Heart wrenching, devastating and abusive.  It was at
this time, I decided to try the whole “God thing” from my childhood a try so I started attending church in Southwest Missouri, about 45 minutes from the gabillion churches that were down the street. It was there that I heard a New Year’s Day sermon that included the letter from a well-known pastor titled “Let it GO!”

I found the text of this letter and posted it to one of my blogs, the one on MySpace. At this point, my MySpace blogs were more for me rather than
other people. I liked it when people read them and commented, but they were more for my self expression and gauging of healing and growth than anything else.

That was why I was surprised to get a late-night (as in middle of the night) email from someone about this blog, which really contained no
original thought. It was a nice note, a guy from a nearby town simply saying that the letter had ideas that he too has had to learn in life and
that his mom really likes that pastor who was quoted and thanks for posting it.

Now at first, I didn’t respond. I had a series of incredibly negative experiences with men who had found me on MySpace. They were abusive,
confused and just really unhealthy. It was because of these experiences that I had decided to stop dating and focus on figuring out this whole
“relationship  with God thing.” It wasn’t a “man ban” per se, but in effect I guess that’s what it was!

But something kept me from deleting the message. A few days, maybe a week later, I read it again and decided, “you know, he’s not hitting on me.
He’s not asking anything of me. He’s commenting on a blog that is about God.” So, I sent him a message back that thanked him and made some other nice conversational comment.

He replied back. I don’t even remember what it was, but something about what he said caught my interest and I wanted to know more about the topic so we engaged in an email conversation that spanned a couple of days. It turned out, by the way, that the odd hour of his email wasn’t creepy at all. He worked third shift so for him, 3 a.m. was the middle of the day, not the night.

We started talking and as crazy as this sounds, we both realized after about two weeks that we would start dating and that it would be a serious
relationship. I was already thinking “this is the kind of guy I want to marry some day.” I was too practical to say “I’ve found the ONE.”…
especially considering we had never met in real life!

We planned our first date at a restaurant off I-540 in Springdale, which was halfway between my home in Bentonville and his in Fayetteville. Oh,
that’s another thing. When people discover we met online, they assume it was a long-distance relationship. We were both right here in Northwest
Arkansas.

We met for breakfast and finally decided it might be good if we left when the lunch crowd started coming in. In some ways, we took things slow
because we had both been burned. And we were both too practical to do too much stupid! But our relationship quickly grew and we were determined to base it on God, which I think is why we are successful.

But truly, since the first moment I’ve met him, John has been the greatest gift God could ever give me. He’s fairly quiet whereas I’m more social.
That, and the weird hours that we work means most people in my life haven’t met him. When they do, the resounding comment that I get is “you
can just tell how much he loves you and how special of a man he is.” That makes my eyes fill with grateful tears every time I hear it.

Our first date was March 30, 2007 and we were married in Springdale on Sept. 21, 2008. We just celebrated our three-year anniversary. It’s been a tough three years, but not in the sense that most newlyweds mean. We’ve been thrown a lot of curveballs through the form of job losses,
life-threatening illnesses, financial struggles, major depressions, family deaths…you name it. But instead of these events tearing us down or pitting us against each other, we’ve been able to use them to draw us closer to God and to each other.

I often wonder how we would have found each other if it hadn’t been for my willingness to write a blog and him being willing to reach out with his
own views on it. I just know I’m grateful we had the opportunity.

—
Jamie Smith