2023. It was a year full of adventures. That spring I had just gotten back from a two week trip with my family to Israel and Jordan. I was exploring, taking travel photos, and scuba diving regularly outside of work. The year prior I was on two scuba diving excursions abroad. I spent time with God under the waves and chased sunrises with Him. I was finding the things that made me tick.

I'm a born-again believer in Christ after exiting the Catholic church in 2017, still learning and relearning faith apart from religion. It was a time of seeking God and exploring that adult independence outside of the cushion of college life, a time of getting out of my comfort zone. I had begun to get used to and even enjoy the time alone, but always knew I wanted to share these times, these adventures, with someone I could call special.

It was September 2023, and I was clearing out my phone of clutter and unused apps. I had forgotten I had it, a dating app called Hinge, downloaded on my phone. Essentially it was collecting digital dust. “Why do I still have this?” I thought to myself, “I’d rather meet someone the old-fashioned way, a cold approach.” I opened the app intending to delete it, but my eyes caught a recent like on my profile. She was a well-traveled photographer, and a Christian no less - without fear of making that clear on her biography - with stunning curly red hair and a smile as bright as the sun… and she’s in Boston. She had guessed right on my photo from Jordan that it was from Petra. I thought to myself why not, I’m deleting this anyway. I replied. She responded.

Next thing I know, every new thing we mentioned we shared in common. Faith. Photography. Travel. Food. She was in Israel a month before I was there. We visited all the same exact locations. This was too good to be true. But the more time I spent talking with Alli, the more it was true. So I decided to push on and ask her to get coffee with me sometime soon. And that’s when she mentioned she’s only visiting Boston and she’s getting on a flight THAT MORNING to head home to South Carolina. But wasn’t enough to sway me after the connection we had started to form. I offered to still meet her for coffee whenever she comes back to Boston. And she excitedly accepted. We exchanged numbers and I deleted the app. And thus began the first three months of our long-distance friendship.

Most people would say long distance is difficult and bound to fail, but I would only argue that if you stink at communicating. All you can do with long distance is talk, and if you want it to go on you can’t be afraid to talk about the things that matter. And that’s what Alli and I did, amongst all the laughs, we got right down to it talking about our values over calls and FaceTime. We talked about everything. And with each value we talked about, it seemed like we aligned on every single one. She was quickly becoming a friend I could trust. A close friend. No, a best friend. Even more than that, I knew I was falling for her.

Next thing I know, Alli tells me she’s coming back to Boston to meet me. I was surprised but ecstatic. I was thinking it would be me to visit first, but she continued to exceed any of my expectations. And so I planned out a fun day with her in Boston to start our three-day visit first time in person.

It was mid-December when the day came. I woke up early to drive to Boston to meet her. She was more beautiful in person. We went to a little coffee shop in Boston’s Italian North End, Caffe Vittoria, where we spent the next two hours talking over coffee which flew right by. And that’s when I felt it, nausea. I was sick as a dog, and it was the cappuccino on an empty stomach that triggered it. But I pushed through. We walked and talked, laughed and had fun all around Boston all day. She was so understanding of how I was feeling and took such care of me. It was the best date ever. And we still had two more days.

I showed her the coast up to Portsmouth New Hampshire and the farms and forests of the small towns I grew up in. She kept saying she was falling in love with New England. And that made me so happy. I knew without a doubt that our meeting, despite being unconventional, was something out of God’s providence.

This was the beginning of our story, a gift from God without a doubt, of my meeting the woman who would become my best friend and my future wife.

S&A