I first met Grace at leadership nights for YoungLife. I didn’t know much about her but she always seemed very nice and genuine. I eventually realized I had feelings for Grace at a work day for Young Life at CommonGround Church. I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the ministry with high schoolers, and I saw Grace exuding the same energy with her girls and knew it was special. I didn’t know this until later, but two of the girls teased Grace all day about having a crush on me, which she admittedly denied. We ended up going to see Avengers Endgame with a friend after the work day, and all I wanted was for it to have been just us. I am a socially shy person when it comes to asking people to go do things, so it took a few months until our first real date, and Grace was the one who asked. We went to lunch and then the movies, and then it turned into dinner and another movie. After the date I knew I liked her, but after she showed up with a cheesecake a few days after that I knew I had a keeper.

I had been heavily involved in YoungLife for the majority of my life, and attribute my faith in God largely to the organization. When I went to college, I thought that would be the end of it, but something in my heart told me I needed to go back. Little did I know the love of my life would be there waiting for me. We had optional leadership nights for all of the YL team in Washington Township, but I was nervous about going since I was the one of the only people from the middle school team that was planning on going. When I got there I was greeted by one of the biggest smiles I had ever seen and immediately felt like I was in the right place. Hayden spent the majority of dinner talking about Liverpool soccer (which should surprise absolutely no one) but I didn’t care; I knew he was someone special and I wanted to know more about him. About a year after we met I invited Hayden to lunch. I secretly panicked for the majority of it, worrying that he might think this was just two YoungLife leaders hanging out and being friends. When Hayden was driving me home I asked him what his favorite dessert is. When he told me “cheesecake” I told him I have a great recipe. He joked and said “if you can make cheesecake I might have to marry you!”. So I did the only reasonable thing- showed up to his house two days later with a homemade cheesecake. Jokes on him… I totally called his bluff.