One year and three months

I wonder if anyone else uses the day they met as their anniversary. But exactly one year and three months ago, I was pulling up to Father's Heart Church in the backseat of a car driven by Jacob Navarro's mom on a cloudy Monday morning, and caught my first glance of you behind a beaming Pastor Steve. That entire first day still plays out in such fine detail in my mind: the first song I sang during sound check, the way your voice effortlessly harmonized with mine in worship, spraying air freshener and trying to air out my smoke-saturated hotel room, and then tossing and turning in distress all night because I couldn't get you out of my head. We've captivated each other from the first day we met, and here we are, 15 months later, and I'm still excited to hear your voice, to tell you about my morning and what I'll be having for lunch.

I've been waiting for a long time it seems for my life to change. I've always been frustrated by my own inability to be satisfied with staying where I am, because it would surely be easier if I never thought twice about spending the rest of my life in NY, serving at my father's church. But for some reason, God hasn't allowed my heart to settle in this place, and there's been a yearning inside of me to expand my world and leave room in my heart for the possibility of leaving. Of course this doesn't mean that the act of leaving will be an easy one, but it's one that I've been anticipating for a while.

When you tell me that you almost turned down Pastor Steve's invitation to lead worship at ReGen, it gives me a chill to think how close we were to never meeting. I guess it's just amazing to me to see how beautifully God can orchestrate the paths of our lives if we only abide in Him. I am a firm believer that those who walk with God will never be put to shame and that their lives will be filled with grace and providence.

You and I both know that big changes are looming. As long and tiring as a 2 year wait is, we're already more than halfway through. And in the last 5 days, not a day has gone by without someone asking me about my future plans with you. I suppose I just needed to put this all down into writing somewhere and tell you in a quasi-public place that my world has become that much wider and that much brighter since you crashed it, and these coming months will probably be the hardest and yet the most exciting in my life. I know that as long as we're both determined to the love our Lord with everything we have, then we'll end up with everything we need.