Ep 5: What's Love Got to Do with It?

Love has everything to do with everything! In this episode, Mandi shares some of her love story and the True Love that started it all.

Find Me Online:

• Website
• Facebook
• Instagram

Transcript

Mandi: Mandi Frantz here welcoming you to my podcast - Find Your Beautiful: Life Through the Eyes of a Christian Disabled Woman. 

[Upbeat Background Music]

Mandi: Interabled love, or interabled relationships, is another new hot label being used to describe romantic relationships where one person in the couple has a disability. To be honest, I'm not sure if this label is only used when one person has a physical disability, or if it's used more broadly, but apparently it is a label I can now use to describe my marriage. Interabled is yet another word my computer underlines in red because it is so new and unrecognized by my word processors. Oh good old labels!

My relationship is probably what I get asked about most. Despite the more obvious things like my awesome pink chair and my cool handmade booties, when people see my husband out with me, they are most interested in our relationship. Granted, a lot of people, I'd even venture to say most people, think he is either my brother or my father. I wish I could capture some of the looks we've gotten when we kiss, or when my husband makes a clearly romantic gesture. However, the questions I get about our relationship aren't just from typically functioning people. I get asked about how I won him over by people with disabilities too. Often times, the questions come from women who haven't quite found their Beautiful yet. 

Today, I'm going to share some of our love story. We've been together for 14 years this September, married for 11 this July. Telling you about the various aspects of our relationship will span several episodes, so I hope you're here for the long haul. I hope my Beautiful story helps you discover, or rediscover, yours!  

[Mandi voices Ad (ads change and will vary)]

[Doorbell Sound Effect]

Mandi: We met in the dark [chuckle]. That's a great start to a book. I need to start thinking about copywriting stuff! Anyway, we technically saw each other for the first time in daylight, but we didn't speak until we were in the dark one night. It was the Summer of 2005 and I had just turned 18 years old. I was offered a job at the camp I grew up going to. I was set to spend a week as the Camp Program Assistant, helping to plan and facilitate fun activities for youth with disabilities. For the first 3 days at camp, I hung out with my crew, reconnecting with old friends and making some new ones. My husband... I guess I should tell you his name is Curtis, well Curtis and I had worked together for a group activity and greeted each other in passing those first few days, but we didn't really see each other. You see, love has everything to do with everything, but now I'm just getting ahead of myself.

One evening, all the staff gathered in the camp chapel for an awesome worship service. The praise and power of the Holy Spirit kept everyone in that chapel for several hours and it was dark by the time we wound down. The chapel sat on top of a steep hill, with only a narrow path down to the cabins we were staying in. During the day, I didn't mind cruising down the path on my own, but at night was another story. This was no New York City street, where the sky is polluted by streetlights. This sky was lit up by a gorgeous moon and a clear view of stars. However, it was not bright enough to risk rolling into a ditch and being stuck by myself all night. Of course someone would have looked for me, but you get my drift! 

So, I looked behind me and saw a group of laughing girls that were too distracted to notice me. Up ahead was a tall, big silhouette of a man. I decided he could protect me and catch me if I fell. I caught up to him, but even in this mostly judgment free setting, where people with and without disabilities freely communed, I thought it would be weird to just stroll next to him without saying a word and I definitely didn't want to say, "Hey, you're a big guy. Keep me safe from potholes, ok?" [chuckle] So, I looked up far ahead of us where a large outdoor tent had been set up to provide shade from the scorching sun during the day. I saw silhouettes of people and heard laughter. I turned my head to Curtis and asked, "Can you see who is under there?" He turned to me and in what I quickly learned to be his style of flirting, said in a sarcastic tone, "Yeah, because I have infrared vision." I laughed and the rest is history. The end. [Pause]

I'm just kidding! That's not the end, not just yet. The truth is, we still haven't reached the end. However, we spent the next few days that we had left at camp hanging out, making each other laugh. The Incredibles movie was out on DVD that summer and the camp played it on a big screen in the chapel for anyone who wanted to see it. I guess you could say that was kind of our first date. We still love that movie! The day before we were scheduled to go back home, me back to the City and Curtis a bit further north of the camp, which was an hour away from me, Curtis handed me a page from a coloring book. He colored in a picture of Winnie the Pooh, perfectly shaded and all. Around the picture, he wrote a letter asking to stay in touch and giving me his contact info. We were both pretty smitten at this point.

I'll be sharing more of our love story over the course of the next few episodes, but this is the part I need to stop at because I've reviewed this part of our relationship countless times. I think about it whenever people tell me how lucky I am to have a man like him. I think about it when people with disabilities ask me how I got him to see past my deformities. To answer this, I have to tell you a little secret. Curtis was way more into me than I was him at the beginning. He definitely knew he loved me early on, before I knew how I felt about him. So I've asked myself, what did I do? How did I do it? There was no magic spell involved, I promise! First, I was myself, but more importantly I loved God first.

Before you shut me off, I'm not here to try to convert you. I'm not even trying to preach. I'm just here to tell you how I Find My Beautiful and to encourage you to find yours. Jumping ahead a number of years, Curtis and I went to pre-marital counseling. We had to take this test that would tell us, and our therapist, how compatible we were. We pretty much failed in compatibility. We really did! We scored a 0 on compatible personality, and none of the other measures were much better, well, except for 1. We scored a 98% on spiritual compatibility! 98%! We both loved God more than anything or anyone else. We put Him first in our lives and that Love allowed us to love each other beyond the limitations. So, to answer the question of how did we fall in love with each other, the answer is we fell in love with God first. What's Love Got to Do with It? Absolutely everything!     

[Sudden Transition Sound]

Mandi: Do you have a love story? Whether your love story is with a significant other, or with God, I want to hear it! If I can get a few stories, I'll share them in a special Valentine's Day episode.

[Bling]

Mandi: While this podcast is now available on multiple platforms, including Spotify and Google Podcasts, I encourage you to download Anchor Mobile App, so you can send me up to 1 minute voice messages with your responses and questions. Your message might even get featured in an episode! If writing is more your thing, you can email me at th3mandibox@gmail.com, or find me on social media at MandiboxBeauty. 

[Mandi voiceover to 'Compton' music]: In the next episode, I'll share with you some of the awkward experiences Curtis and I have had in our relationship and what we did to make them Beautiful. Tune in for, "Did I Do That?" ‘Til next time Beauties!