Whitney and I first met when I was senior in college and a couple mutual friends introduced us after church. Later that day, she saw me in the cafeteria and sent me a Snapchat after my friends and I had left. She commented on how she saw me pray before my meal and that sparked a conversation that would last for a couple of weeks. During that span, we had hung out twice to watch movies, but over time nothing came of it since we were both in different seasons of our lives.

After I had graduated, I took a job coaching football at a school in Pennsylvania, and during that time, Whitney had never left my mind. Every time I thought about what my future would look like with a family, it always came back to Whitney. Whitney and I began talking again while I was in Pennsylvania, but ultimately we decided that it wouldn't be best to start a relationship while apart from each other. At the end of the season, I had decided to move back to Northwestern as a Graduate Assistant.

Once I had moved back, it did not take long for me and Whitney to rekindle. It felt like we had to make up for so much lost time over the previous year. I knew right away that there was something special about her when she watched all six of the Star Wars movies with me. We continued to grow together and spent what felt like every evening together. The moment I first knew that Whitney was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with was when she came to Washington over Christmas break for a week. Watching how she interacted with my family and relatives was the icing on the cake.

Fast forward 7 months to our next trip to Washington, I decided that I was going to propose to Whitney and ask her to spend the rest of her life with me. I'll never forget her reaction because we had agreed on waiting until the winter to get engaged, so she was completely caught off guard. To make things even better, the first words out of her mouth were not "Yes", but "Are you sure?". I will never let her forget what her response was, because she tends to ask if "I'm sure" about a lot of things. But ultimately, I could not be more thankful for the path that God has led us down and how He has brought us together. There is no doubt in my mind that Whitney is the one I am meant be with and I cannot wait to see how God uses our relationship to impact those around us.

Hilton Garden Inn Ames