our story

I’ve felt like “wait” has been a significant theme of my life, as it probably has been for lots of people.  From the time I was little, I never really knew what I wanted to be other than a wife & eventually, a mom.  My friends dreamed of being teachers, lawyers, doctors, artists…but I never knew.  I picked a major in college that I felt like I was naturally good at, but I’ve never felt as meant to be anything as I felt like I was created to be a wife.  For years, I watched my friends get married, one after another.  I saw new boyfriends, proposals, weddings, & babies.  I felt like I was being left behind.

And then one day it all made sense.  It was worth it.  I had never doubted that God had a husband for me, but when I couldn’t see His plan, I did doubt His timing.

I graduated from college in May 2010 & began the job search.  I applied for hundreds of jobs.  Jobs that sounded perfect for me.  And I got no responses.  I worked a few part-time jobs here & there during that time, but there really wasn’t anything promising for a year.  In May 2011 I took a job in Woodstock.  It had nothing to do with my degree & wasn’t something I was remotely interested in.  But I felt more at peace about that job than the hundreds of jobs I’d applied for that sounded like things I would love.  I moved, immediately got involved in a church there, and met Grayson 2 months later.

 

I think Grayson & I are both pretty reserved people.  We have close friends that know us really well, but not a lot of people know us on an intimate level.  For almost a year, that was the friendship we had.  We were acquaintances really.  We were in the same circle of friends, so we saw each other often, but didn’t really know each other.

On May 19, 2012, Grayson randomly called & asked what I was doing that night.  “Everyone else” in our group of friends was going to a wedding that night of a couple that we didn’t really know that well, so neither of us really had plans.  He asked if I wanted to go to a movie.  I assumed I would just meet him at the theater & we were going to a movie as friends.  I wasn’t home when he called, but before I even got back to my house, he called & asked if I’d had dinner.  I hadn’t, so he said he’d be at my house in a few minutes to pick me up & we’d get dinner before the movie.  [I didn’t even know he knew where I lived.  The weekend that “I” moved, I already had plans to go to New York with my mom & some friends, so church friends moved all of my stuff for me.  As it turns out, Grayson is the one who set up my room, put my bed together, & played a big role in having it all arranged for me when I got home a few days later.]  When he picked me up, he’d already decided where we were going to eat.  I loved that he was so decisive.   At dinner, I feel like I just stared.  I was sitting across the table from him, listening to him talk, wondering how I’d known him for almost a year without really knowing him.

We went to the movie [I am not at liberty to tell you which chick flick Grayson picked for our first date because he thought it was a comedy] and then back to my house to watch another movie.  Later that night he just leaned over & kissed me.  I think my already-big eyes grew even bigger because I was totally shocked.  Maybe it came from years of wanting something that I couldn’t force and couldn’t make happen, but I was very guarded.  It was my tendency to make less of things because I was afraid.  I had told myself all afternoon that this was not a date.  And then suddenly, it became very clear to me that it was a date.  Not only was it a date, but it was my last “first date.”  And that was it for me.  I can’t say that I knew right then that I would marry him, but it was honestly only a matter of days.  This was who I had been waiting for.  The timing was not at all what I would have orchestrated myself, but it was perfect. 

A few months later, August 24, 2012, Grayson proposed at the church where we met.  It was absolutely perfect.  One way that we found that God really confirmed that this was His plan, was in the support of all of the people who were close to us.  I’m sure some people probably doubted the timing of it all, since we only dated for a grand total of 96 days before getting engaged, but there was never a doubt for either of us, and our families and close friends were in agreement with our decision to get married.

 

On December 29, 2012, we had the perfect wedding with all of our friends & family there to celebrate with us.

 Every day since then has been an adventure.  Moving across the country just seven short months after we got married was not exactly part of the plan, but that didn’t scare me.  We felt like that was the decision God wanted us to make for this phase of our life, and He worked out every little detail.  God has given me such a peace about even the big things in life.  He’s shown me time & again that His way is good.  

In some sense, we’ll always be in a period of waiting as long as we are on this earth…waiting for jobs, marriage, babies, etc.  But what God has taught me in these periods of waiting are that these are times for great growth.  They are times to lean into Him & run hard after an intimacy with Him that we might not know otherwise.  And every desire that we have that God asks us to wait for, it is certainly worth the wait.

one year - here & here