Three years ago today, he knocked on my door, walked me to his car, and took me on what would be my last first date.
He prayed over our meal, walked me down Third Street with an iPod splitter playing music in our ears, and slipped his hand into mine for the very first time.
We had our first dance to what would become “our song” under the stars on the bluffs overlooking the ocean.
It was truly magical. Perfect. So simple and so “Clay.” It was a better official beginning to our love story than I could ever write.
This man has seen me eager, bright, and putting my best foot forward. He has seen me hurting, depressed, and crumbled at my absolute worst. And somehow he loves me all the same—even deeper still.
We’ve walked through mountain tops and valleys low. And through it all Christ has been our center—the glue that holds us together, our hope in the darkness, and the first we praise in our joy.
What an adventure these last three years have been.
I find it so fitting that our first date was on the very first day of Spring. I find such well-timed significance and meaning written into this love story God is writing.
Before this first date I had had to turn down an opportunity to be in a film I’d put six months of preparation into {hence the blonde hair}. It was a wintery season that was ended with this beautiful new beginning of the relationship for which I’d waited my whole life.
And now after quite a wintery season of chronic physical pain and stomach issues, I feel another beautiful new beginning of healing with the coming of Spring! The Lord is beginning to heal me, to release me from great captivity and deliver me to the greatest freedom.
The details of Clay’s and my future may look more uncertain than they ever have before, and yet I have a more abounding peace than I ever experienced in these 32 years of life.
For I have seen God to write better stories, with more significant and perfect timing, and with more hidden and mysterious meaning than I ever could. I’ve seen dreams only to be taken away that they might be replaced with even greater ones. And I’ve seen relationships to be taken away only to be replaced with the absolute best one.
I’ve seen Him to tear down only that He may rebuild.
And so I can walk in confidence wherever God may lead us, letting go of my control, releasing my grip on the pen I so long to use to write our story, knowing that the one God is writing is so much better.
He’s the ultimate creative Author after all. He’s written and is writing the greatest Love Story ever told. Ours is just a small reflection of it. A page in the Epic.
Your life’s a part of it too. I hope that wherever you have been walking this winter you will join me today in joy as I replace my previous mantra, “Spring is coming!” with that of “Spring is here!”
Because Spring is here, y’all! Finally! I can feel it. See it. Hear it. This long-awaited light is breaking through the darkness. New life is breaking through cold, hardened soil.
I have seen God to be so utterly and endlessly faithful. Just as this man is to me. And so I hold onto hope through it all—mountains high and valleys low, singing praises to Him who is sovereign over whatever may come our way.
And I thank my God every minute {well, most minutes anyhow!} of every day that I get to walk it all hand in this man’s hand.
“I’d follow you to the great unknown, off to a world we call our own. Hand in my hand and we promised to never let go; we’re waking a tightrope. High in the sky we can see the whole world down below; we’re walking a tightrope. Never sure, never know how far we could fall. But it’s all an adventure that comes with a breathtaking view, walking a tightrope with you.
Mountains and valleys and all that will come in between, desert and ocean, you pull me in and together we’re lost in a dream, always in motion. So I risk it all just to be with you. I risk it all for this life we choose.” – Michelle Williams, Tightrope {The Greatest Showman}
Happy official three years, Clay, my rock, my friend, my one true love.
I love walking this tightrope with you.
