Charlie and I met in April of 2021 at Watermark Community Church. Charlie had just moved to Dallas proper and I was starting to wrap up my second semester of vet school. It was a Tuesday night at their young adult ministry called The Porch. We were both in a period of change in our individual lives and were only looking for friends. We found friends in each other and our group started to grow quickly. Through the spring and summer after spending time together I asked her on a date! She said yes and we were off! I asked her to be my girlfriend on July 1st, 2021 and she said yes again! A couple months later in September I left to travel back to Dublin to start up school for my third semester. This was the start of our long distance relationship. A relationship with 5000 miles between is not easy but we committed to communicating through facetime with each other nearly every day. We built our relationship at first through relationship question cards which lead us to talk about things that helped us to discuss deeper topics and grow closer to each other. All together we have done over 1500 questions all pre-written with the design of digging deeper in a relationship. After almost a year and a half of dating I asked Charlie to marry me on January 1st, 2023. Thankfully she said yes! Today we are still doing long distance and are looking forward to the time when we don’t ever have to again.

Our relationship has definitely been non-traditional. Most will say that distance is hard and we are no exception to that. BUT. We have also benefited from it in ways we could not have imagined. With dedicating time each day to sit down and intentionally communicate with each other we have been able to dive into a relationship filled with love and respect for one another. We have both learned that keeping Jesus Christ at the center of our lives and the center of our relationship is the only true and perfect way to a joyful life. We know we could not experience the peace and prosperity that we have without the blessings God has given to us. God has allowed our relationship to be built on the foundation of Christ who is all loving, all powerful, and unchanging, which allows us to love and serve each other and those around us with true meaning and purpose. We are excited for marriage because we believe it is the perfect earthly picture of Christ’s love for the church, his people on earth. We look forward to advancing God’s kingdom together through our marriage. We cannot wait to continue our story and are ready for the next chapter of marriage on June 1st, 2024!

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. - 1 Peter 4:8