June 2019

It all started when one of my coworkers at the time came up to me out of the blue and said, “Hey, are you open to going on a blind date?” I laughed and said “Um, sure?” She then told me about this girl that I should meet. And just like that the next thing I knew I had a phone number for some girl named Emily. Our date finally came, and as I walked up to the restaurant this beautiful brunette was walking towards me - a phenomenal start to the date for at least one of us. We talked about family, school, work, friends, and all the other small talk you have to wade through in order to get to the places you want to get to go in order to really learn about someone. Since dinner went well, it was time to launch phase 2 of the date master plan: ice cream. We grabbed ice cream, and we continued the conversation of getting to know each other, but this time it centered more around our faith in Christ and how He had been directing and transforming our lives. It was such an impactful conversation, and it was particularly during this part of our evening that I knew this Emily girl was unlike any other girl I had dated or been interested in. At the end of the date I walked back with her to her car and told her I’d like to see her again. Thankfully for me she felt the same way and the rest is history.

I was two days away from graduating from Furman University when Kelsey Earle told me she wanted to set me up with a guy she worked with in downtown Greenville, South Carolina. I was already planning to move to Auburn post-graduation for graduate school but somehow I landed a job and a home to stay in for the month of June before leaving Greenville for good. A couple days later I got a text from Luke and I agreed to the blind date. He kept randomly texting me the days leading up to the date (keep in mind he never even told me his last name) and to be honest it caught me off guard that such random texts could make me laugh so much. I got so excited and nervous so I asked Luke if we could move the date sooner than we had planned. Luke agreed no problem. After that first date, Luke and I spent the rest of June getting to know one another, meeting each other’s friends, cooking together, hiking together, and eating lotsss of tacos. One month after meeting we mutually decided to date despite the fact I was moving 5 hours away. Luke asked me to date by leaving a letter in a little leather journal we still write each other in. If my house caught on fire I'd definitely grab that journal first. Dating long distance from the start was definitely never easy. It has always been worth it though. 10 months later Luke moved to Birmingham right around my birthday :) We’ve been praying from the start that God would bring us together on His time and I wish I had enough space on here to tell you all the little details only God could have put in place to do just this. I’m counting down the days until no. more. goodbyes. and a lifetime together with my favorite person in the universe.