How God has blessed my life by bringing my wife and I together!

How God has blessed my life by bringing my wife and I together!
My wife and I was introduced by a mutual friend (dean) we had from California, this was the first of October, 1997. She was from Pennsylvania, and of course I was from Indiana. We all had ICQ and I don’t know if you have ICQ, so will briefly explain it to you. It is a chat program that you have to authorize users; you do not have to have a browser open to use it. He introduced us, but she was leery of me. She was known as a man hater, and I know this, because I have seen the reactions of some of her friends when I came along.
I tried to get her to authorize me and she wouldn’t, you could send messages but it was better to be authorized. Then my computer got sick and I was offline for a couple weeks. when I got computer back up, I tried 3 more times, I thought after the latest 2 attempts, I would try 1 more time, if she didn’t respond, I would just give up. Needless to say she responded. This was the end of October. We both worked dayshift, so we would rush home and talk on ICQ all evening till midnight or later. then the weekend before thanksgiving she ask me to come up and visit her the weekend after thanksgiving, I got to thinking that we would both have a long weekend thanksgiving weekend, so I said what about thanksgiving weekend. She said that would be great. so I left after I got off work the Wednesday before thanksgiving and came to Pennsylvania and got up here about 11:00 pm we talked till about 3 am then I went to hotel, which she already had set up for me. Then got up around 8 and came back to her house and went to her moms for thanksgiving. The funny thing about this is she got a headache while at her moms, and she asks me to drive home. She did not know how I drove, yet she trusted me to drive her and her son home. In her younger days she lived a wild life and a guy took advantage of her and she had a son, but God has blessed her and she is a great Christian lady now. She also had a part-time job and had to work the day after thanksgiving. so she I stayed at her house, with her son, which is another miracle, because even though we did a lot of talking on ICQ, I could have been just telling her things so that I could set her up and take advantage of her too. But God was already at work in our lives. She went ahead and give me keys to her house. we discussed marriage and was going to get married February 14th, I came back home to Indiana on Saturday, when I got home and called her, we decided we could not wait that we had to get married sooner. So we talked and talked. And she came down the following weekend to visit my family. While she was down we decided to get married the last Saturday of December, 1997. I ask her how her son felt about it (he was 15 at the time) and she said he was ok with it. I told her the reason I was asking, was if he was against it, there would be no use in us trying, because he would always be driving wedges between us. I said that once we get married that I would not come in and be a "mean ole step dad", but I wouldn’t let him walk on me either. To this day, he has never said, "I don’t have to listen to you, you are not my dad" we get along great. I thought him how to drive. His mom made him nervous and he was more comfortable with me in the front seat. Anyway, so on December 27, 1997 we got married. The pastor who married us was dead-set against it, at first, then after him and Judy talked for a while, he was ok with it, because he realized that we had discussed everything under the sun. he also usually requires like 5 - 2 hour sessions of marriage counseling, we had about 2 hours total, because when he would ask different questions, we not only answered that question, we would end up and answer other questions he was going to ask, even before he asked. Needless to say, we are still happily married. My stepson and I get along great. He treats me the same way he treats his mom.
I gradually would ask him to do things and tell him no when he would ask to do some things, not to be mean, but even teens do need to learn that they don’t always get to do everything. His mom always told him yes, so when she wanted to tell him no, but couldn’t make herself say no, she would say, I can’t make that decision, that is up to Rick. He knew that if he whined he could get his way with his mom, but whining didn’t work with me. I didn’t tell him no to be mean. But didn’t feel he should get to do everything he wanted. when I told him no, the first few times he would try whining to see if I would give in like mama, once he figured out I didn’t change my mind. Then he knew what I said was final. He will ask me things now that he really should be asking his mom. He respects me and I respect him. We still get along great.