A Love Story Long Awaited

Hello, all!
The story I'm about to tell has been much requested, and there are many of you I've never given the detailed version to, so brace yourselves. ;) In my last post, I mentioned a special young man that had entered my life. His name is Luke, and this is the story of how we met. :)

In order to tell that, I have to back up around 4 years, to 2013. That year, my parents took a trip out to Missouri for a conference. While there, my mom met a young lady named Bethany, and they totally hit it off. My mom has 8 kids, and doesn't normally keep in close touch with people, because life is just crazy...but for some reason, (which I can now see was God's hand :), she and Beth kept in contact pretty regularly over the next 3 years. I always enjoyed hearing about her family and how things were going, but never really talked with Bethany myself. 

In our hectic and long drawn out shuffle of moving from Omak to Wenatchee, they lost touch for over a year. Fast forward to August of last year (2017). One evening, my mom was on the Bible app, and it "randomly" popped up with a name--Bethany is on this app, would you like to connect with her? My mom promptly emailed her and did some catching up. 

She remembered that Bethany had a brother, and asked right out if he was still single. ;P Subtle, mom. Thanks. ;D Anyway, Bethany informed her that he was, and of all things, my DAD totally jumped on the wagon and started immediately trying to initiate us getting to know each other better! Both Luke and I were completely uninterested at this point. We had both only recently come to the point of being completely and fully surrendered to being single, for the rest of our lives if that's what God's will was! And now, all of a sudden, we were supposed to start getting to know this perfect stranger?! Literally all I knew about Luke at this stage of the game was his name. That's IT. But, we both agreed to pray about it for two weeks. At the end of that time, it didn't seem like there was a neon YES in the sky, but there also weren't any red flags. Reluctantly, we started emailing.

We did a few "hello, my name is" type emails, but after that it felt so awkward, at least for me. I didn't know where to go from there. Luke's dad suggested that we could write actual paper letters, which I was very much in favor of. For some reason, it's a lot easier for me to express myself with a pen and paper than in an email. 

After about 3 letters, my interest level had spiked by approximately 100%. ;P I wanted him to visit. Very much so. ;) I'll never forget getting the email from my dad while I was at work that Luke was actually going to come!! On December 29, 2017, my dad went and picked him up from the airport, and we met for the first time at my workplace. Over the next few days, I pretty much lost my heart to him. ;) I didn't mean for it to happen, but it just did! I felt completely at home and comfortable around him almost immediately, which is not a typical thing, even for mostly extroverted me. We had the time of our lives.

Luke and my dad left on the same day...Luke to go back home, and my dad to fly down to Jamaica for a week to teach some classes. That was honestly one of the longest weeks of my life. ;) A few days after my dad got home though, Luke made it official, and our relationship really began! :)

We talked via Marco Polo pretty exclusively at first. After a while, we started using FaceTime as well, and although they aren't NEARLY as nice as talking in person, I am incredibly grateful for technology like this that allowed us to get to know each other!

I realize I'm rambling here...I'll speed things up. In April, my entire family took a three week trip, driving down to MO for the missions conference at Luke's church. Yet again, I had an absolutely amazing time, and was more sure than ever that I really, REALLY liked this guy. ;) 

A month later, at the beginning of May, Luke flew out for 4 days and surprised me. It was the most awesome surprise ever...wow. I couldn't believe he'd pulled it off!! Obviously, lots of help was involved from family on both sides in order to keep it a secret. ;) Saying goodbye at the airport at the end of that visit was one of the hardest things I have ever done. 

And then, I booked a ticket to fly out there on July 4, only a month ago. I got in on a Wednesday afternoon, and on Friday, Luke and I went to a place called Hahatonka State Park with his mom and one of his sisters. All day, we wandered around the beautiful trails and hills, just enjoying the day (though it was pretty hot ;P).

Eventually, we made our way down to a beautiful spot down by the water. I took my shoes off and waded a bit, and when I came back up on the bank, Luke suggested we take a picture. We stood together and his mom started videoing, unbeknownst to me. ;) Before I knew it, Luke was down on one knee, asking me if I would be his wife. I was SO utterly overwhelmed and overjoyed!!! When I got my breath back, I said YES! (I actually said it 5 or 6 times, I think. ;) He put the most lovely ring I'd ever seen on my finger, and I haven't really left Cloud 9 since. 

For the first time in my life, I was quite literally speechless. For about 45 minutes, all I could do was grin from ear to ear, with absolutely nothing coherent to say. ;P A while later, as we sat together at the place where he'd proposed, he turned to me and said, "Well? Are we going to jump in?" Ha. Are we going to jump in, indeed. You all know me, adventure calls, I answer. ;D We went up the trail a little ways to an outcropping that hung over some of the bluest (and I soon found out, some of the coldest) water I'd ever seen. On the count of three, we jumped, and it turned out it was deeper than either of us expected...and WOW it was so cold! :D It was the most awesome spontaneous memory, though, I am SO glad we did it. It just made the day that much more spectacular. :) 

The next few days were some of the happiest in my life. I don't know why, but I didn't realize how much our relationship would shift after we were officially engaged. I always kind of assumed it would be pretty much the same as it was before (which was awesome). Not so. For one thing, we had waited until after we were engaged to exchange those incredibly amazing words, "I love you". I had thought those words about a billion times. ;) Being able to finally say them freely was the most wonderful thing EVER. :D I think I've said them approximately innumerable times since. ;) 

The wedding is set for October 12, just over 90 days from when he first asked me! :) We have a wedding website that you can find at this link. We were able to meet up with my sweet friend Kimberly before I left Missouri, and she took some lovely engagement pictures for us. :)

I can't even begin to express how grateful I am that God has blessed me with this relationship. Luke is so much more amazing than I ever could have imagined. Without getting too mushy, (haha! ;) I will say that he has loved me infinitely more than I ever thought anyone but The Lord could or would love me! He is incredibly strong, loyal, encouraging, hilarious, and downright crazy handsome. ;) Over this relationship, he has become my best friend, and I cannot wait to spend the rest of my life with him! <3 

May I offer the encouragement that the right man is so completely worth waiting for. If you are wondering why God is taking so long to bring someone into your life, please take heart...it seems long (believe me, I know!), but it is SO worthwhile! :) Keep up the good work in the meantime, you won't regret it!

Without further ado, I am giving the "floor" to Luke, who will close out this rather lengthy post. ;) Thanks for sticking it through! :D

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Well, this seems like a bad start to happily ever after - we aren't even married yet and she's already telling me, "You're on the floor."  ;P  But to the topic at hand: I'm no author, but I'll attempt to give the flip-side of the story Mykaela just told by giving a glimpse of things from my perspective.  I'll start from the point where Mrs. McDowell reestablished communication with my sister.  The first time I can remember ever hearing anything about Mykaela went something like this...

Beth (my sister): "Hey Luke, do you remember Mrs. McDowell, the missionary wife I used to email?"

Me: "Yeah, I think so..."

Beth: "Well, we started talking again on the Bible app, and she just asked me if you were still single."

Me: (cringes) "Oh. Great."

Yup.  That's about how it went.  But before you judge me too harshly, let me give some context to the situation.  1)  I was 24 at the time,  2) I was not married,  3) I had a number of friends who had been... shall we say, "zealously concerned" about eliminating point number 2 for a few years by then.  You get the idea.  In short, I was NOT particularly excited about what this development might imply.  Like MK said, I had fairly recently reached the point in my walk with God where I was perfectly happy to stay single for the rest of my life if He so desired (yes, it took me awhile to get there, unfortunately), and I didn't want to lose the simple peace that I had by getting caught up in the possibility of a relationship.  Honestly, I just wanted to ignore the entire thing.  The next day, her dad called.

Over the next few weeks, I prayed quite a lot, did a fair amount of internet stalking (how else was I supposed to find anything out about a girl who lived 2,000 miles away?), and Mykaela and I exchanged several emails and letters.  Eventually, though I was still hesitant to begin a relationship, I came to the belief that God was telling me that I needed to go up to WA for a visit.  So off I went, hesitant, but cautiously hopeful as well.

It didn't take long for me to realize just how awesome this girl was.  By the end of the visit, I was smitten.  After a couple of weeks spent in prayer, I was confident that a relationship was part of God's will.  I'll never forget making the call to Bro. McDowell to officially start things off!  I was grinning ear to ear!

In interest of keeping this as short as I can, I'll skip ahead to July 6th.  I WAS SO NERVOUS!!!  I mean, I was pretty sure she would say, "Yes," but there was still a little voice in my head saying, "What if she doesn't?"  But she did! :D  Best.  Day.  Ever!  (Shortly to be superseded by October 12th)  ;)  There are no words to describe a blessing like Mykaela.  I do NOT deserve the attention, much less love, of this amazing girl!  (No, MK, you can't delete that because it is true - you said I could write whatever I wanted).  God has been so good!  And let me reiterate what Mykaela said earlier: wait on God.  It will be worth it - far more than you can possibly imagine!