It all began in the summer of 2022, July to be exact. It was a summer that would change the course of Abby and Colton’s lives. They were existing in two different worlds, as she was an au pair in France, and he was entering into his senior year at Franciscan University in Ohio. There must have been a seed planted by the divine sower in both their heads to spark a curiosity to download CatholicMatch at just about the same time that summer. Maybe it was a curiosity, or maybe it was just complete desperation. Either way, God used the natural timeline of events to guide this into being—Abby was soon to return from France and was yearning for a husband, and Colton, after a few tries, realized that he wasn’t going to find his wife at Franciscan. The funny thing is that he had an inkling he would meet his future spouse during his two years there in Ohio. He actually did! But he didn’t expect that she would be thousands of miles away. Thankfully, that didn’t last long, since Abby was returning to her home state of North Carolina just a month after they began talking. It started with a few shared messages over the app, which morphed into more consistent chatting over iMessage, which then inspired them to finally have a couple facetimes, until Colton asked Abigail if he could drive down that August to meet her in person. Abby and Colton surely didn’t know the adventure that was in store for them, and they were too small to grasp that life’s moments, the victories and the tragedies, were guiding stars that led them to discover their vocations and to discover each other in a world of so many different possibilities and outcomes. After a few days of discernment, Colton asked Abby to be his girlfriend early September, and she said yes, despite not truly knowing the challenges that long distance would pose. After 16 months of traveling back and forth from North Carolina and Ohio and even from North Carolina to California (Abby did most of the heavy lifting, since basketball occupied most of Colton’s time), Colton finally moved to the Tar Heel state, where he asked his beloved to be his wife May 4th, 2024. After some convincing, Abby accepted the greatest challenge of her life: dealing with the goofy shenanigans of Colton Hage and trying to get him to heaven. All glory to Jesus Christ!