Noah and I first met in elementary school, where—so I’ve been told—he had a crush on me. As time passed, we grew apart and went our separate ways, until we crossed paths again in our junior year of high school and began dating. Though we both professed to be Christians, in reality, we were not fully surrendering our lives to Christ. We tried to love each other while keeping Jesus at the margins, but the truth is, that will never work. As Tim Keller once said: “To be loved and not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God.” Inevitably, Noah and I broke up. As our freshman year of college began, we made the difficult decision to part ways completely, both feeling the Lord calling us to surrender everything to Him, including our relationship. We had placed too much of our identity and security in each other rather than in our Creator. That season of separation was painful, yet transformative. In our loneliness and heartbreak, we learned what it meant to seek God wholeheartedly, to find our refuge in Him alone. And in that surrender, we experienced the nearness of the Lord in a way we never had before. Months later, Noah and I reconnected—not necessarily with the intention of rekindling our relationship. We spent hours sharing testimonies of God’s faithfulness, and in doing so, I saw his heart in a way I hadn’t before. Since then, he has pursued me with intentionality and cherished me in a way that reflects the beauty of God’s design for a woman. I realized then that I wanted to do ministry alongside him—to be image-bearers together, reflecting the generosity and holiness of our God. Tim Keller puts it best: “We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time, we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”