Our Story

I get asked a lot how Brady and I first met. While I never really get tired of answering it, I also don't feel like I can ever provide enough context and background to make the story worthwhile. So, here you go. And yes, this is a very long post but it has a happy ending! Pieces of it were taken from a blog post I'd started but never published/finished. 

January of 2021 was R-O-U-G-H. I've talked some about it, and those who are the closest to me know all the details, but the year itself started out hard (January 2020 and 2021 were jokes.). I mentioned in a previous blog post that I'd had my heart broken by a guy. To make a long, convoluted story short: in November 2020 a guy friend that I'd gotten to know for a couple of months and I had a conversation where it was revealed that we both liked each other. Except, he told me he wasn't quite ready for a relationship yet. He had some issues to work through. Okay, fair enough. Let's just be friends for now and see what happens. I operated under the (spoken) assumption that friendship was a proving ground for a relationship later. He gave absolutely every indication that was his intention (just ask anyone who was around us during that time, they'll tell you he was giving indicators of romantic interest). January 3, I got a call from him that honestly turned my world upside down in that regard. He said he hadn't been honest with me and that he had withheld the truth because he wanted to "protect my feelings" and because he was a "nice guy". Cue the laugh track. Fellas, can I give you one piece of advice when handling a girl? Tell her the truth in kindness and clarity. Don't toy with her or assume she wouldn't want to be told the truth. Rip that band-aid off early and things won't fester as long. But I digress. January was hard because things did not turn out the way I thought they would. Barely 3 days into 2021, my heart felt like it'd been shattered and my trust in people, particularly men, had been practically broken. Yet....God was faithful throughout it all.

I'd kind of decided I was done with men. I was tired of being lied to and treated like a china doll, and I honestly didn't feel like that was God's plan for me anyway. Let me learn to be content with being single and then we can talk about getting into a relationship or back into dating or whatever. But about May, I decided to give online dating one more shot. I tried several different apps that I'd used before, and none of them were working out. I finally decided I'd try Bumble since I hadn't used it before and I knew several people who had had lots of luck meeting their significant other on the app. The week before Memorial Day, I signed up and created a profile. I even had a friend help me ghost write and edit my profile (she says she feels partly responsible for us being together!) and within a day I had matched with a guy in town. We talked through Memorial Day weekend and he asked if I would be open to meeting him for dinner that week. I said yes, and we met up on June 2. While I thought I liked him right off, the longer we were at dinner the more I didn't. We didn't click and quite honestly I'd had a bad vibe even before I'd gotten to the restaurant. We went our separate ways and never spoke again. June 3, I was swiping in the app, only seeing either 22 year olds or 36 year olds, and most of them were not at all remotely qualified for consideration. 😳 I eventually reached the end of the suggestion stack, and out of frustration I decided to check my settings. Lo and behold, my search radius was only 50 miles (hello, there's NOTHING within 50 miles of where I live 😂), and my age range was way skewed. I adjusted what I could and refreshed my suggestions and got a ton more. I swiped right on this really cute guy who liked Marvel and Star Wars, and seemed to have a good sense of humor, and I thought it wouldn't go anywhere. We matched and it was up to me to message first (this is a Bumble feature: girls can only message the guy first, not vice versa). Thankfully Bumble provides icebreaker questions so I didn't have to think too hard of anything to say. 

I sent my question and really thought he wouldn't reply. Within an hour, he'd replied with his answer, and that started a conversation that has literally never stopped since. By the next day he had given me his number and I gave mine, the day after we were Facebook friends and I'd done my background checking to make sure he was legit (we still laugh about this actually). By that next Monday, he wanted to meet face to face but I was going out of town for a week so I couldn't meet up. It was 3 weeks before we met face to face. He suggested he come here and we go looking around at antique shops. I suggested we meet at Joe Taco for lunch and then go shopping. I thought it was so unique that he'd suggest something like that, especially because most people don't suggest a shopping trip, let alone shopping at antique stores! I had a friend positioned not far away at lunch so that I could call on her if needed, but she wasn't needed. After lunch we walked all down 6th street and exhausted ourselves by choosing to do antique store shopping in mid-June. We said our goodbyes and I'll be honest, I wasn't sure if I really liked him in that way. And for the record, he knows this already because I told him several months ago, haha. But I wanted to give it some time because I know that attraction and liking someone in that way can come after you know a person. July 4th was the day that convinced me I wanted to pursue it full throttle, though I was still a little reluctant because I'd been burned so badly 6 months earlier. 

We went official as a couple on August 3, and he told me he loved me on October 11...in a cemetery. We laugh about it because it's just another unique facet of our relationship. It was genuine though, and I will never forget that day. We'd survived our first road trip to the Dallas area, visited our first Buc-ee's together (not the first time for either of us but as a couple), and he met my sister, brother-in-law, nieces and nephew for the first time. Carter was also baptized that Sunday, which was the primary reason we'd gone. From then on, things started to get more serious, and we started talking about the future and what that looked like for us. In December, as we were talking about engagement rings, I sent him pictures of 6 rings I'd picked out from a local jeweler's website. Later after Christmas, he told me which one he had picked of the 6 and we decided that when I had the ability and time, we would go to the jeweler and have my finger sized and a price estimate obtained. We ended up not being able to go until February 7th, and from then on it was just a time of waiting. We still talked all the time about what the future might look like, where we'd live, who would be giving up their job, kids, etc. And we decided to go ahead and begin premarital/pre-engagement counseling while the timing of everything else worked itself out. Brady asked my parents' permission to marry me on Easter Sunday (April 17th), and then....

The Proposal

Everybody wants to hear the story of the proposal. It's something I think will be cemented in my memory for a long, long time (and if you know me and my absent-mindedness that's saying something!). Brady was coming to visit on Sunday May 22nd and on Saturday he'd asked me a couple of questions: "you didn't want a fancy proposal did you?"  and "do you want to get coffee in the morning before church?" Both questions got me a little suspicious, especially considering that he'd cut his hair on Wednesday. But I just tried to dismiss my feelings as paranoia, because I'd been anticipating a proposal for a while and I tried to ignore all the little things that were adding up to be odd. So anyway, my answer to both of his questions was "yes", because who turns down coffee shop coffee?  We decided to go to Palace around 10:00 Sunday morning and I couldn't put my finger on exactly why I thought he was acting a little weird. Something was just "off". Again, I just tried to dismiss it, but just in case, I made sure to wear a really nice outfit Sunday. A girl must be prepared at all times!  We were about to leave my apartment when I noticed he had his right arm behind his back, and he said that he was going to wait until the coffee shop, but couldn't and he was worried there would be a lot of people around. He got down on one knee and asked me to marry him in the living room surrounded by all my moving boxes and Bilbo and Frodo (rest assured, they didn't care much). It caught me off guard a little because I just wasn't thinking it'd be that weekend. He also made sure to wear a blue shirt, which he knows is my favorite color and I think it's just a super sweet detail of the whole day. Also, want to know something a little funny? Sapphires are my favorite gemstone....and they just happen to be HIS birthstone. I didn't even realize that when I'd picked the ring out. It was something he pointed out to me Sunday morning after he proposed. I know lots of people love sapphires, but come on. What are the odds I'd have my heart set on a sapphire ring only for it to be his birthstone? I just think it's neat how things end up like that, and I don't really believe in coincidence. Below is a photo of the ring and I absolutely love how it turned out. But more importantly, I love it because of the person who gave it to me and of all the things that went into making it happen. I love him so much and I can't wait to marry him on October 15th!!! 

Bonus: because I like dates on the calendar, I have to share these:

January 3, 2021: I had my heart broken and thought that I'd never date someone because I couldn't handle getting hurt.

June 3, 2021: Brady and I matched on Bumble and started talking

June 26, 2021: we met for the first time and started dating

August 3, 2021: we went official as a couple

September 26, 2021: his 26th birthday; my sister's birthday is on December 26th (and it's the day of the month we started dating)

Y'all. 6 months TO. THE. DAY that I'd gotten that phone call in January, I matched with my now-fiance. I don't believe in coincidences at all, and in some small way, maybe it was just a gentle reminder from the Lord that He takes what is broken and redeems it, even if we can't imagine how. I didn't do anything formulaic; I prayed about getting on the app and told the Lord that I'd give it 2-3 months of trying. If nothing came of it, I'd give it up and never pick up another dating app again because clearly that wasn't the tool He was going to use. I wish I could tell you I got my heart's desire because I did x+y so it equaled z. But I didn't. My singleness for its season was a good gift, given for a purpose by a good Father. My boyfriend, now fiance, also another good gift given for a purpose by a good Father. No matter your situation, season, or circumstance: trust His heart in what He has given you. He doesn't ask you to understand it, but He does ask you to trust Him and His will for your life. It's so difficult sometimes, I know. I spent 29.5 years wondering if permanent singleness was my lot in life. And so I decided to try to be satisfied every day in where He had me. And it was by no means perfect, I cried a lot and argued with Him over why I thought I deserved a boyfriend. I didn't deserve it. Not one bit. I still don't deserve Brady and I'm so grateful God brought him into my life. Most of you know how much I love Elisabeth Elliot; her story of faith and tragedy is always moving to me. She was married 3 times, all 3 times losing her husbands to death or martyrdom. She had so many words of wisdom to share, but these I especially love: “…the deepest spiritual lessons are not learned by his letting us have our way in the end, but by his making us wait, bearing with us in love and patience until we are able to honestly pray what he taught his disciples to pray: Thy will be done.” 

“The will of God is never exactly what you expect it to be. It may seem to be much worse, but in the end it’s going to be a lot better and a lot bigger.”