How I Knew We Were Going to Get Married

Since getting engaged, I’ve had a lot of friends ask me how I knew Charles was “the one.” To be clear: I hate the term “the one.” I don’t believe in it, and I don’t think it’s biblically accurate.

I definitely believe God planned Charles and I to meet, and He is the sole reason we will soon be husband and wife. But to me, “the one” makes it seem like we all have one shot at love in our lives. If we miss it, oops. Too bad. I don’t think that’s true, especially for people who lose their spouse and then re-marry.

Even without the term “the one,” I know for certain God designed man and woman for monogamy. From Genesis, we see God created man and women in His image and gave us marriage as a gift between man and woman. He created man and woman to come together as one flesh in the covenant of marriage.

“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female He created them.”

— Genesis 1:27

And I know without a shadow of a doubt that Charles is the absolute best man for me. He has all the qualities I desired in a future husband, and I know God prepared his heart for me while simultaneously preparing my heart for him. Charles is my teammate, my biggest cheerleader, my confidant, my best friend.

So how did I know this? How did I reach a place of confidence in him and in our relationship?

It was not love at first sight for Charles and me. We were both instantly attracted to each other and wanted to know more about each other, but I did not have immediate confirmation that he was the man I was going to marry. No spotlight shown down on him; God’s voice didn’t come over me, telling me he was my future husband. Our love grew slowly, and the Lord provided continued affirmation over time to both of us.

Early on in our relationship, Charles suggested we read The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller.

Me: “You do know the expectation this is setting, right?”

Charles: “Yes, that’s why I want to read it.”

Me: Well, okay then; let’s do it!

Charles was intentional with me from the very beginning and clear about his desire for a relationship leading to marriage.

These five specific qualities helped me know that Charles is the man God has for me:

1. He prays for me.

Charles prays for me, and he asks how he can be praying for me. He’s quick to send me a Bible verse and word of encouragement when I need it. One of the big reasons God brought Charles to me is because of the way he has helped me in my recovery. He speaks Truth into my life. He’s also constantly sharing with me what he’s learning from the Word and what God is teaching him.

2. He prays with me.

Also important: Charles prays with me. We try to end each phone conversation by praying together. This doesn’t always happen, and we both understand there are situations (like when one of us is driving or when we’re out and about) that make this more difficult. But knowing my soon-to-be husband values praying with me is the greatest gift. Sometimes we as a culture treat prayer like a last resort. But prayer moves our hearts. Prayer allows us to be in tune with the heart of God. Prayer reminds us that nothing is impossible for the Lord. Friends, date a man who prays.

3. He makes me laugh.

We are both quirky and goofy. We share the same sense of humor. Charles made me laugh on our first date and has kept me laughing since. ( I also know there are times when this blog has made him laugh out loud, hehe.) He helps me relax when my anxiety kicks in, and I’m just so darn happy to grow old with a man who keeps me smiling.

4. He loves Jesus more than he loves me.

This is so, so important. Charles loves me, yes. He loves me most than any other human on this planet. But he loves Jesus more than he loves me. That may seem counterintuitive—shouldn’t I want my husband to love me the most? In short, no. I prayed for a husband who would put Jesus above me, and that is what Charles does. If Charles loved me more than he loved Christ, then I would become an idol. I would become his everything, and our marriage would be held to an impossible standard. Imagine if Charles loved me above Christ and then I disappoint him (which I have). The disappointment would be devastating, maybe even crippling. For our marriage to not only survive but to really thrive, we both need to put our love of the Father first. He is our primary devotion; our love for each other comes just below it.

““At last!” the man exclaimed. “This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man.’ This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.”

— Genesis 2:23-24

5. I see who God is making him, and I want to be a part of that process.

In The Meaning of Marriage, Tim Keller writes:

“Within this Christian vision of marriage, here's what it means to fall in love. It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of what God is creating, and to say, "I see who God is making you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that. I want to partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to his throne. And when we get there, I will look at your magnificence and say, 'I always knew you could be like this. I got glimpses of it on earth, but now look at you!”

THAT. That is exactly how I feel about Charles. That is how I knew I wanted to marry him. In the two years we’ve been dating, I’ve watched him grow more and more into the man God has created him to be. It’s the most exciting part of this whole journey, and I cannot wait to see all He will do in Charles’ life—and ours together—in the years to come.

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If you want to talk more about Jesus Christ and faith and what-the-heck-is-all-this-stuff, shoot me a message. I love meeting new people, whether virtually or in person, and gabbing about life. 

And if you'd like to know more of my story, you can read my testimony here.

Truly, He makes beautiful things.

Our Love Story

Charles, my fiance, is the love of my life. He is God’s greatest gift to me, and we cannot wait to get married this June. Our story is a direct testament to the grace of Jesus Christ. He is the sole reason we met, dated, and will soon come together as husband and wife.

Charles and I met on October 31, 2015, at a wedding in Waitsfield, Vermont. I was there to watch my roommate, Ashley, get married—my roommate who just happened to be Charles’ sister. Ashley and her husband, Dave, and I had become friends that year. She told me about her cute brother, Charles, but I didn’t think much of it. Charles knew about me, too, but neither of us knew what the Lord had in store.

We met on the dance floor somewhere between Randy Travis and Justin Bieber. And the rest is history.

Just kidding.

The truth is that while we did dance the night away, we didn’t think a relationship was going to come out of that night. Charles went back to the South; I went back to New York City. We talked and texted over the course of the next few months, and Charles came to visit Ashley and Dave—and me—in New York City that January of 2016. We went on our first date (the best first date of my life!) and had such a fun weekend just the two of us and double-dating. I loved showing him around my home.

Yet when we said goodbye, I pretty much assumed that was going to be the end of anything between us. Yes, we had fun. Yes, we had chemistry. Yes, he was interested. But I didn’t really know this guy. He didn’t live in the same city as me. And I was closed off to the idea of someone new.

I had been in previous relationships, and the summer before meeting Charles was the first time I felt okay in my singleness. I really wasn't expecting to meet someone or get married until my 30s. I truly wanted to be able to get to know myself better as a single woman, and I wanted to grow in my faith on my own. I was at peace. I had told myself I wouldn’t step into another relationship unless I knew where the guy’s head was at. Only if I knew that he had the same desire for marriage as I did and that he was just as strong in his belief in Christ as I was. Only then would I consider a relationship.

There’s no way that could be Charles, I told myself.

He lives in Savannah, Georgia, and I’m in New York City.

He’s younger than me.

He’s not going to want a real relationship or to pursue marriage.

What’s the point?

I was discounting Charles before I ever gave us a chance.

So when he called me up and asked me to come visit him in Savannah, I told him I’d have to think about it. Then I did what I do best: I wrote to him. I wrote him a 1,043-word email. Yes, really.

I explained how my past relationships crumbled. That I was thankful to God that He ended them but also much more cautious now to start anything new. I explained how God had been working in my heart and called me into a deep, personal relationship with Him. I told Charles that I knew what I desired in a relationship and how I wanted one leading to marriage.

And then I included a bulleted list of my reservations as to why a relationship between us wouldn’t work.

Yikes.

Before ending my email, I wrote:

What I do know, Charles, is you are the kind of man I have prayed for for so long. You love the Lord. You are kind and caring. You are respectful. Your family is more important to you than your work, although you work hard, too. You make me laugh! On top of all that, you’re super cute.

I sent that and waited for his reply. Waited to see if he still wanted me to visit, fully anticipating him to think I was way too much to handle.

Five days later, Charles' reply was in my inbox. I remember it so clearly because I read that email on my phone and, in the midst of a busy NYC subway, I started crying. He addressed all my concerns and then wrote words I'll never forget:

God has brought us together for a reason and I think it's too soon to end things. You are a beautiful, brave, kind, Christian woman. Your heart is for the Lord. You have all the traits I desire in a wife. I already thank God for putting you in my life, even if I am unable to see you ever again. You are a soldier for the Lord. I love and admire how you are able to use writing to bring glory to God and reveal Him to others. Your blog takes so much courage and I know it does great good. So keep it up!

Charles’ words brought me to tears, and I knew then that this could be something special. I went to visit him in Savannah a few weeks later. We shared our testimonies with one another, and we talked about how the Lord had led us both out of darkness and into the light. We shared our hopes and dreams, and for the first time, we started falling in love.

As we parted ways at the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport, we decided to make things official as boyfriend and girlfriend. It felt like something out of a movie.

Much of our relationship really has been like something out of a movie. Charles loves me in a way I didn’t know was possible. He loves me deeply, gently, and selflessly.

The only way he’s able to love me like this is because he loves Jesus Christ first and foremost.

I have to be honest with you, though: not all of our relationship is like a movie. My Instagram feed reads like a highlight reel, and while, we love each other so much, we argue and bicker like any other couple. We get annoyed with each other. We struggle with the typical male/female tension points. He’s overly practical, too direct, too detached. I’m overthinking, too emotional, too sensitive.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

— Genesis 1:27

But how sweet is God to redeem those characteristics and set up the covenant of marriage between the (very different) male and female to complement one another. God created us to reflect His own image, and marriage is one of the many things He uses to further show us His glory and make us more like Him.

Whatever relationship stage you are in, God can use that to refine you. He will mold you, shape you, and draw you closer to Himself if you let Him in. God did that mightily in my dating experiences, my breakups, and my singleness. I didn’t realize at the time how much he was using those situations and seasons to transform me. I started this blog as a single woman, after a breakup that gave me the motivation I needed to put my words on the Internet. And this blog is one of the biggest reasons Charles continued to pursue me long-distance even when I wrote him a laundry list email of all my hesitations about why he wouldn’t measure up.

Before we ever met, he and I had to learn individually that we are only saved by grace through faith alone, not by our works or good deeds. We had to realize the depth of our own brokenness, our own sins, and how much we desperately need a savior in Jesus Christ. We had to individually come to the recognition that nothing in this world will ever truly fulfill—including marriage—but that a relationship with Christ brings us hope. And we had to see the value in dating God’s way. Friends and family had been praying for us before we even knew each other existed.

God was preparing my heart for Charles—and preparing his heart simultaneously.

So even when we butt heads, we have never stop being on the same team. I never for one second doubt that he is praying for me, praying to be the leader God has called him to be, and loving me with his whole heart—while putting God above me.

We have dated across five different states in two years, with nine months of both living in Nashville. Throughout those 730 days, we knew we could count on the other. We knew we were in this thing together. We knew we wanted to point the other person to Christ.

Charles encourages me and my giftings. He has helped me step into my true identity while healing from my eating disorder. And I do my best to speak life into him, respecting him and building him up. I remind him of the man God has called him to be.

When Charles asked me on December 21 to be his wife, the answer was a no-brainer. (For all of you wondering, yes, I did say “yes!”) We are so excited to spend the rest of our lives together. It’s not going to be perfect or without its trials, but it is going to be the absolute sweetest gift. We know God has been writing this story for a long time. Thanks for joining with us on the journey!

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If you want to talk more about Jesus Christ and faith and what-the-heck-is-all-this-stuff, shoot me a message. I love meeting new people, whether virtually or in person, and gabbing about life. 

And if you'd like to know more of my story, you can read my testimony here.

Truly, He makes beautiful things.

Love With All Your Heart

I’m jittery. There are butterflies in my stomach, and I feel somewhat nauseated. My heart is pounding. My palms are slick. A slight sweat forms across my brow (and definitely in my armpits).

I’m totally enraptured. I can't focus on anything else but that one thing. That one person. I think my heart may have actually skipped a beat.

Do you know the feeling I’m talking about? Do you know that sense of excitement and adoration? It’s love, and there’s simply nothing else like it.

“Listen, Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is One.

Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates…

Be careful not to forget the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.”

— Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 12

You’ve probably heard this passage before. It’s quoted all the time. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.

But as I read it today, the words carried more weight for me. I saw the full context of this command for the first time, and I could grasp why it’s so very important.

Moses spoke these words after God brought the Israelites out of slavery and gave them a new life. He’s about to bring them to the Promised Land! Moses has been leading the people, and he’s instructing them to obey the Lord before they enter the land. He’s telling them the greatest command: Love God. This is no small task. He tells them to feel this deep in their hearts and souls. Teach your children. Wear this feeling proudly for all to see. Display it daily in the way you walk. Let your home be evidence of your love for God. And don’t ever, ever forget the darkness and the slavery that God delivered you from.

This is deep, life-changing, soul-enrapturing love.

This is the kind of love that changes your whole life and forms the core of your very being. This is called the greatest command for a reason.

What’s even more amazing is the fact that God loves us a million times deeper than the kind of love we’re capable of. We’re fickle humans; we love, and we forget. We love other things more than God. But God, He actually is love. He loved us so much that He made His son, Jesus, fully man to take on our sins and die the horrific death we deserved. He took on the cross for us. He rose to heaven and grants us eternal life!

Matt Chandler says,

“Listen to people talk all the time. They fell out of love. ‘I just don't love him anymore.’ In fact, the thing that's probably most frowned upon in predominant culture when it comes to love is someone who loves by will, what the Hebrews called ahava. It was a love of the will. It was ‘I'm not going anywhere.’ Don't romanticize that. That's not rose petals and violin and candles being lit and, ‘Oh, honey, I'm not going anywhere.’ All right? That's something on fire over here, a knife flung past your head, you're hunkered down, there's chaos everywhere, and you say, ‘I'm not going anywhere.’

Ahava says, ‘I've seen the ugly side of you and I'm staying.’”

Ahava is what Jesus did for us, and it’s the love we are privileged to receive if we accept it and believe it.

We have to love Him in return. That’s the greatest command.

I love my family. I love my friends. I love taking walks, I love drinking coffee, I love watching This Is Us. I love all these things, and I’ll talk about them all day long. Where does Jesus fit into that? Are we willing to talk about Him the way we talk about these lesser things? Do we love Him and look at Him with that jittery feeling we do when we’re in love?

I know I often fall short. I get way more excited about stuff that ultimately doesn’t matter. I let my other loves come before my love of God. There’s nothing wrong with loving your family, your friends, or even This Is Us. But when the order of our loves is upside down, we’ve made a mistake. We’ve forgotten the ultimate commandment.

With the world we live in, it’s so easy to get caught up in cultural commands. Man’s commands tell us to make money. Be successful. Find a spouse and have a nice family. Be healthy. Be pretty. Be strong. And make sure you have it “all together.” Achieve balance.

I don’t see those commands in the Bible. I see God telling us to love Him and to let our love for Him pour of our lives in everything we do.

Remembering the darkness that the Lord redeemed me from is what allows me to love Him first and foremost. He brought me, just like the Israelites, out of slavery. He made me into a new creation. Praise God for that. He loves me with ahava love. He changed my life; He called me into His Kingdom. I want to tell about His goodness all the day long!

My prayer is that I never forget the love God shows me and the freedom He gives me. I pray you won’t either. Think about the depths He called you out of and the new life He’s granted you. If we realize God loves us that much, how could we not love him with all our hearts, all our minds, and all our strength?

And if you are reading this and you’re thinking, I don’t know if I have been given a new life, then will you tell God that? Will you ask Jesus into your heart right here, right now--will you profess Him as Lord and Savior, and let His love transform you from the inside out?

Read my story. Read the stories of these beautiful women. Watch my pastor’s story. God is powerful, and He changes people’s lives every single day.

He loves you, and He wants your love in return.

How God Opened My Eyes to Dating His Way

I really didn’t date until after college. The little bit of dating I did during college consisted of meeting men at bars and seeing them once, or maybe inviting a guy from my writing class as my date to a sorority party. Dating wasn’t a priority for me, and honestly, I was fearful to date given my lack of experience.

Post-college, I was suddenly much more interested in the dating scene. I said NBD to any fear around dating and my lack of experience. I began to flirt, I began to date, and date quite a bit. Truth be told, I liked it. I liked the attention from men. I liked living the way I saw in magazines and on TV. I bought into the idea that “the one” would complete me, and I spent a lot of time and energy trying to ready myself for the perfect man.

When I did find myself in my first committed relationship in 2013, I let the world dictate that, too. I made the relationship my everything. I made him my everything. As you can imagine, that relationship grew sour. The sweet exterior faded until a painful, toxic root remained. Friends pointed this out to me on more than one occasion, and as the breakup hit, it became so clear to me that they were right. The relationship was past the point of healthy. Being in a relationship simply for the sake of having someone isn’t worth the cost. We broke up, and God protected me greatly in that.

Throughout 2013 and 2014, God was working, refining, pruning, and pulling me closer to Him.

My eyes were opened like never before. I saw where I had veered (way) off course, and I started to see the beauty of God’s way. He had a better way for my relationships all along; I had simply been too blind to see it.

I announced my faith publicly through baptism in early 2015. Things in my life began to click. It was as though a weight was lifted off. I knew from that point on that my relationship with men would be different. My approach to dating forever changed. My understanding of marriage and “the one” was turned right side up.

“So God created man in His image. In the image of God, He created them. Male and female, He created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.’”

— Genesis 1:27-28a

God created man and woman in His image, to be fruitful and multiply. God set this way from the beginning of time!

For most of my life, I didn’t get that. I didn’t understand His beautiful design. I did what I wanted. It took years of struggling, of loneliness, and of heartbreak to realize there is a better way for relationships and dating. As I read more and more about God’s way, the scales began to fall off.

The book of Ephesians rocked my world. Relationships are not about ourselves. Marriage is not about me finding ultimate happiness and fulfillment. It’s not about my Prince Charming saving the day. It’s about sacrifice. Marriage is holy. Marriage is loving someone in spite of them—and in spite of yourself. Dating is an earlier degree of that.

No small request, right? But that’s love in light of eternity. That’s the glory we can partake in here on earth. That’s the way God will bless.

After my first breakup, I decided to pray for my love life.

I found a specific prayer online that I wrote down in my journal and prayed in earnest for a long time.

I prayed:

That God would give me a relationship (Matthew 7:7)

That He would grant me patience and insight to wait for a good one (Isaiah 40:31)

That He would be working out anything unhealthy in my life (Jeremiah 33:8)

That He would shape my heart for nourishing interactions with others (Colossians 3:12-14)

That He would bring healing into my past so I’m free to embrace the present (Philippians 3:13-14)

That He would protect my emotional world and give me wisdom of how to set healthy boundaries (Proverbs 4:23)

That He would open my eyes to the joys of doing sex His way (Hebrews 13:4)

That God would be the focus of my life now and forever (Psalm 37:4)

I prayed this and even thought I met someone a month or two later who was an answer to that prayer. He was not, and that was okay. Life moved on. I found myself investing more in Christ, in the one who was now my primary love. I learned to enjoy and appreciate my singleness as a gift. I couldn’t be tempted or distracted by others; my focus was finally on Him.

Still, I prayed that prayer, and I prayed the Lord would inject continual peace and contentment into my status as a single woman. I prayed He wouldn’t give me what I wanted but give me His best. (Yes, that same prayer over my career worked pretty well on my love life, too.) I stopped dating for a bit. I stopped planning. I stopped comparing and asking everyone, “How old were you when you got married?” I stopped looking at my ex on social media. I stopped doing things that weren’t what I desired and weren’t what would bring me closer to Christ. I let go and let God.

Yes, I desired a boyfriend during this time. I wanted to know if marriage was in the cards for me. I hoped and longed for someone special, a partner in ministry, a man to love me boldly and like Christ. This is a good desire! I asked God to take the desire away if He wanted me to be single instead and to live missionally, singularly focused on Him, like Paul suggests we all do in 1 Corinthians 7.

“Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.”

— 1 Corinthians 7:28

So that’s what I did: live the life God has called me to.

God wasn’t done with me, or my love life, quite yet. He had a few surprises in store in 2015 and 2016. He opened my eyes to doing a relationship His way, to doing sex His way, to living focused on Him above all else—not as an afterthought. And God brought someone into my life who helped me see the beautiful design He has for our relationships. That design is not impossible or irrelevant but transcends all ages and eras. That design is as real for us today as it was for the early church thousands of years ago.

Dating like I used to date does not even compare to the joy I’ve experienced in dating His way. It’s like I went from having fat-free Splenda-sweetened ice cream to having creamy Italian gelato with hot fudge and a cherry on top. I mean, hello. No comparison.

Dating is a special and unique season, and I’m thankful for how God has used this time to make me more like Him. As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. I now actually enjoy looking back on the heartache and pain I once experienced because I can see God’s hand over it all. It’s been a sweet, sweet journey, and I look forward to what’s next. Thank you, Jesus.

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If you want to talk more about Jesus Christ and faith and what-the-heck-is-all-this-stuff, shoot me a message. I love meeting new people, whether virtually or in person, and gabbing about life. 

And if you'd like to know more of my story, you can read my testimony here.

Truly, He makes beautiful things.