Noticing Wonder: a love story (Part 1)

*This work is wholly original and was written without the assistance of artificial intelligence.*

__________

I challenged myself in ways that I never had before.

I became a different person as soon as I put on my climbing harness and tied in to the rope that dangled from the vertical climbing walls. I reveled in the feeling of the chalk between my fingers and the pinch of the climbing shoes as I began a new route that both terrified and fascinated me.

My favorite place had become a small local climbing gym downtown that sweltered in the summer and froze in the winter. It was tucked away, niche, away from the circles and communities I’d always been a part of.

Tall, chalky walls filled with endless climbing puzzles waiting to be solved with mental and physical skill and strength. 

The crack climb that demanded tenacity and layers of climbing tape wrapped around my calloused, tired hands. My knees, subjected to countless bruises. 

That feeling of slipping, falling, exhausted and hanging to rest before pulling yourself up and trying again. 

I had never been good at team sports. They terrified me, actually. Combined with a lack of skill, low confidence and bad experiences, I had determined I wasn’t skilled enough to entertain the idea of ever being proficient at any sport. 

It seems silly, but sports were a visceral arena for other areas of my life. It was an area where my confidence had been slowly eroded and I found it easier to hide than to try. 

But at twenty-five I became fascinated with climbing. 

It pulled me in. I found that despite the awkwardness and embarrassment at my innumerable failures and a growing awareness of my physical weakness (and the pain of breaking in new climbing shoes) I was willing to push past all of that. I was willing to work hard to become good at something I truly loved.  

I entered a new era. An era of growing confidence and the ability to enjoy something without trying to impress anyone. I became driven and unlocked a new part of the way I was created that I had never experienced before. 

I became unafraid of trying, failing, falling, and trying again. The feeling of succeeding, of conquering, of working hard to achieve something all for the pure joy of it, was a totally foreign thing to me.

The small local climbing community that frequented this gym, some being seasoned climbers in the gym and on real rock, were welcoming and eager to offer advice and celebrate every win. I felt an unexpected acceptance by others that I had never before experienced outside of close friends and family.

The two years that I’d been single were the most joyful, healing, years of my life. For the first time, I was completely at peace in ending the search for someone to give me answers, confidence, joy, and love. 

I was blessed with deep, sweet friendships. I went on adventures, worked, traveled, pursued further education, and pushed myself in new ways and did things I was afraid of. 

I became braver, more confident, and inwardly joyful. I was finally at peace after years of tumultuous searching for a love that I thought would give me all of the things that seemed once so elusive.

Three years before that I had been broken by a relationship that had threatened to destroy me. Almost a year after that I had experienced another relationship and breakup that showed me that I wasn’t ready to make wise, thoughtful choices about the kind of man that I should be with. I realized I was looking for the wrong kind of relationships to fill a part of me that couldn’t be filled. 

My faith in God had been watered by brokenness, shame, loss, and the tearing down of all of my dreams that had once felt like a lifeboat in tossing waves of an uncertain future. 

The roads I walked down, doors I pushed on, were dead ends. The loss of people and things I thought would provide me with what I hoped and desired had been very painful. But because I had walked through hurt and disappointment there was a divine deepening of my faith. I began to realize that there was much more than romantic love and marriage to the life that God had given me. 

I was more intricately designed than I had once believed. I no longer had to look for validation in the approval of another—a search that always left me feeling less-than, hollow, and broken.   

I learned that I was capable of moving through life without romance and even the hope of it around the next corner. I learned how bright, wondrous, full, and purposeful life could be. 

I was also glad to be away from the uncertainty, risk and fear that relationships always brought. 

After broken trust and only ever experiencing the ugly side of relationships, I had become convinced that in order for me to date anyone, God would have to make it very clear that they were the person I was supposed to marry. Until then, I was content and happy to remain single.

Relationships had once been what held hope and promise but in the last two years my singleness had become the place I felt safer, more secure, more hopeful than I ever had. I finally had the space and the ability to begin rebuilding what had been broken down.

I felt a tremendous freedom at no longer feeling the pressure to conform to the expectations of another. I had no hopes that were inevitably disappointed. I wasn’t waiting on anyone to call me, text me, pursue me. 

But I had not been hiding away. I had been healing.

________________

David lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the “biggest little city in the world.” 

This energetic and vibrant university town provided him with an exciting sense that life was constantly moving, always providing interesting things to do and opportunities to meet new people. 

People from all over the world and from all different types of backgrounds who moved there to attend the University of Michigan were eagerly seeking out connections in a strange new place and David was just as eager to meet them.

The University had brought David to Ann Arbor ten years before. He had graduated in 2012 but had continued to live there because he became involved in local churches, acquired jobs, and grew to love the city.  

He lived with his two roommates, whom he had become close to, led community groups in his home, led worship at his church, and spent a lot of time with many of the young people that were a part of his church.

But the last two years of David’s life had not been easy. 

He had walked through severe mental health struggles with OCD, disappointments when relationships didn’t work out, and a long stretch between jobs (after the tech startup he was working at ran out of money) until he had gotten a job at the University of Michigan. 

The University alternatively provided a sense of stability that he hadn’t found in other jobs but it had also contributed to a mental health spiral which resulted in months of inner turmoil and suffering throughout the winter of 2019.

David was a confident, outgoing person, but his struggle with OCD isolated him from all but his closest friends who knew the depth of his struggle. Even the most basic day-to-day things became desperate, distressing struggles.

But when spring was giving way to summer David began to experience a slow but sure relief from the intensity of his OCD. 

The perfect summer days in Michigan found David once again riding down the streets of Ann Arbor on his beloved moped, spending time with his friends, drinking bubble tea at Coco Fresh, playing soccer with friends, throwing himself into ministry at his church, and finally enjoying his job at the University.

Although David desired to be married, twenty-nine had come and gone and he remained single.  

Since a serious relationship some years before, David remained unsure and doubtful in all of the relationships that followed. No matter what, he would inevitably find himself wrestling with doubt and indecision. 

This left him wondering if maybe he just needed to push past the doubts and fears that had ended

every relationship he’d been in for the last ten years. 

His feelings began to feel like an enemy rather than an ally and he was becoming frustrated.  He knew that this struggle had led to him unintentionally hurting others and was taking him further away from his desire to be married.

Even the people closest to him questioned him and suggested that maybe he was being too picky. 

He began to pray that God would make it obvious when he met the girl that he was supposed to marry. He didn’t want to have to think about it or question it. He wanted to fall unquestionably in love.

____________

At the end of April 2019 I moved into a small studio apartment. 

Although it was attached to my parent’s home it still provided me with a much needed sense of independence and the ability to have more autonomy as I entered my mid-twenties. 

This apartment would eventually become a haven, but at first I wrestled inwardly with the change, even though it was just a move across the house.  

Whether because of my personality or something else I found that I had begun to cling to the safety and stability that sameness provided, whether that was leaving my small childhood bedroom of seventeen years or major life changes.  

My best friends had begun to move away to other cities and states, some to go to school and some to start their own families. These changes produced in me a grief at what felt like the last flickers of my childhood leaving me behind. 

Laying in my bed in my new studio apartment one night shortly after I moved in, I realized how much I loved my home, my life, and the closeness I had with my family. I didn’t want any of that to change. 

I loved the simple things—the smell of uncut alfalfa and the sweetness of almond blossoms that washed through the open windows at night. The delta breeze that was carried over the walnut trees behind my parent’s backyard and cooled the hot summer days, and the long dirt roads between endless orchards that encircled their house. 

Dirt roads and orchards that remembered hide-and-seek games with my brothers, bike rides, and walks in the early morning fog and the evening dusk. 

I loved the two ranges of mountains and hills, the Sierras and the foothills, that our home lay between. Just a couple of hours drive away on one side there was the heavenly smell of pine-trees and the breathtaking, towering granite mountains of Yosemite. 

And the rolling foothills on the other side; lush and green in the spring and a warm golden hue in the summer that wound with the highways and back roads that led to the Pacific ocean. 

I could not imagine anything being compelling enough to give me a desire to leave all of that.

Near the end of May, something unexpected, something that felt very fragile, began to wind its way into my heart again. 

Hope. 

After my last breakup, I had been given a break from all of the pain of hopes and dreams that had not come to fruition. I had been able to put those desires away for a while and live fully and joyfully without them. 

But suddenly and unexpectedly I found myself beginning to pray for marriage again. Nothing significant happened to cause this but it felt like all of the feelings and desires I had put away for a time began to slowly and softly come forward again. 

My desires and how I approached dating had completely changed from what they were before. I had finally gotten to a place where I felt an open-handedness. I was no longer looking for someone to be an answer, a missing piece, or someone to convince me that I had worth or purpose.  

After all I had walked through in the last eight years, I had this sense of peace in stepping back and fully trusting God. I was satisfied to obey God when He chose to close doors and I would only walk through them if they were undeniably opened by Him. 

That mindset brought to mind the very brief experience I’d had with online dating just a few years before. 

Online dating, at times stigmatized (and rightly so in many cases), had unexpectedly provided me with hope when I needed it and the ability to see that there were good, kind, godly young men out there. 

Although I never ended up dating anyone I met online, I made a couple of connections that ended up being long-term friends. At the time it felt like a gift, a kindness from God, after I had only ever experienced relationships that had been hurtful or disappointing.

____________

David experienced the end of a serious relationship in college that had temporarily upended the plans he had for his future. Soon after that he began to suffer from severe OCD for the first time. 

He had to temporarily move home with his parents when his OCD made it impossible for him to take care of his most basic needs. 

Since then he’d experienced major relief but the OCD never completely left. 

God had used that breakup, the subsequent OCD, and closed doors to bring him into a closer and more dependent relationship with Himself. 

Like myself, David had a past that contained failures and disappointments. These served to press him deeper and more authentically into experiencing the depths of God’s love, faithfulness, and redemption. 

As a result he became wholly committed to personal purity, transparency, humility, godly leadership, and the importance of taking risks when he pursued someone he was interested in.

But he was also feeling burnt out after dating on and off for the last ten years. 

In the last two years he had tried online dating but it had only ever been disappointing and unproductive. 

But instead of retreating he continued putting himself out there in-person and online. He desired marriage and was willing to take chances even if things didn’t end up going anywhere. 

__________

One evening I revisited my old dating profile on a little-known Christian dating app. 

Sitting next to my Mom we laughed occasionally as I looked through profiles. I was fully convinced that online dating would lead nowhere. 

I was strict in my guidelines with who I was looking for. Along with the givens, there would be absolutely no men whose profile pictures featured them without a shirt on, men posing next to their trucks, and men who lived too far away. 

I made sure that my settings were ironclad and no “strays” would get through my ruthless requirements. 

But almost immediately, I came across a profile that quite literally left me speechless. 

It wasn’t the fact that he was handsome (because he was) or had zero questionable pictures on his profile (because he didn’t), but the fact that it was obvious that his Christian faith was genuine. He spoke thoughtfully about books and authors that I was very familiar with and he was specific about the nuances of his beliefs which seemed to mirror my own. 

And like a little extra bonus, his name was David, which was my Dad’s name. 

I went from laughing with my mom to showing her his profile in disbelief. 

He had linked his social media pages and I immediately began to do more digging. Surely there was a catch somewhere…a weird picture, newly dating someone, something that made it an immediate no. 

But when I looked at his social media I was even more intrigued. 

He was musical, artistic, involved in his church, and had good friends. 

In that moment I felt a huge desire to initiate, make things happen, but even in online dating where the woman can make the first move and it’s not seen as taboo or off-putting, I knew that I needed to let God work and let this guy reach out first. 

Whether it was him or not, I knew that from the very beginning when I met anyone, I wanted every step to be clearly led by God. I desired that all of the pursuing would come from the guy I would ultimately end up with.

I had visited David’s social media profile, and I knew he could potentially see that, but I wouldn’t “follow” or message him. 

That evening as I put away my phone, I found myself praying about this guy. I felt really silly doing so and I truly didn’t trust myself after the poor choices I’d made in the past. 

There had been so many times where a situation had felt right and so many times I’d prayed about someone, and it had been a closed door. 

I didn’t want to over-spiritualize anything or place meaning in anything that may just be being hopeful or optimistic. 

But even so I felt the need to ask God to have David initiate if there was to be any conversations between us. I would not lead or pursue him and I recommitted to that as I prayed about it that night.

___________

David drove through dark winding roads to his family’s cabin on Lake Louise in the North of Michigan.  

The trees were rapidly changing from lush, green branches to evergreens as he traveled further north. Soon he would be driving through country highways that rolled and wound over hills all the way to the cabin.  

David’s great-grandpa had built their family’s cabin in 1949 by floating logs down the lake. 

It was small, but cozy, and the White Pine walls were full of the memories of long summer days. His mom had spent countless summers there since she had been a baby and the lake was where she’d learned to swim as a little girl.  

Pathways all around the cabin led through expansive growths of tall beech and birch trees. The diffused, pale green light filtered through the trees and threw the ground and shadows below into a soothing softness.

The lake that lay just forty feet from the cabin lapped at the shore with a gentle, dependable coming and going. It was at its most beautiful in the early morning—smooth as glass, nothing to disturb its hushed waking. 

After college David had begun to appreciate nature more. He found that instead of desiring an endless stream of activity and spending time with people, he began to crave being alone with God and in the hush of His creation.   

Along with the opportunity to get away from the busy-ness of his day-to-day life, David was also looking forward to spending time with his parents and sisters whom he didn’t see very often. 

His siblings, all nine of them, lived in different parts of Michigan or in other states, but the annual cabin trip every summer brought some of them together again to revisit some of their favorite haunts and to spend time together. 

He had a lot of fond memories of walking down to the bridge, going for walks in the woods, taking hikes up to the meadow. and looking at stars from the pontoon boat. 

He remembered countless afternoons spent kayaking, going to “Pie-Rat” island (lovingly named by one of his cousins), and eating his mom’s cooking and famous sheet cakes. 

As David drew closer to the cabin, he found his thoughts wandering to earlier that day when he’d noticed that a girl he didn’t know had visited his social media page. 

Over the last couple of years there’d been instances where someone he didn’t recognize had visited his page. He’d figured they were probably someone who had first seen his dating profile and wanted to find out more about him. 

This had never led to further interactions but on this occasion he’d been intrigued and he’d looked at this girl’s page.

He quickly noticed several things about her that stood out to him; he had found her attractive, she enjoyed the outdoors and climbing, she enjoyed music and sang, and it seemed that her Christian faith was a big part of her life. 

He had visited her blog and read through some of the things she’d written there. He was excited to find that he agreed with her thoughts and resonated with many of the things she’d written about her faith and convictions. 

Online dating had always made it tricky to know much about a person before he reached out, but in this instance he found he already knew some important things about her that made him feel unusually hopeful. 

Right before he’d left for the cabin he’d “followed” her on her profile. He planned to reach out when he had reception again after he came back from the cabin on Sunday evening.

___________

I woke up on Saturday morning to find that he’d followed me on social media. 

My stomach dropped and my immediate unbidden thought was “oh no.”

Although connecting with me on social media wasn’t really that big of a deal, I felt a sense of seriousness and weightiness in it. 

I had sworn off “just knowing” and following my feelings a long time ago, but I couldn’t deny the way I felt that morning.  

Combined with the fact that I was terrified of relationships, I had also noticed that he lived in Michigan. 

That was 2,300 miles away.

Just a couple of days later, on July 21st, I received a lengthy, well-written, thoughtful message from David. 

Hi Jennifer! I hope you’ve had a good weekend. 

I’m reaching out to see if you would be interested in chatting a bit to get to know each other. You seem like a solid woman who likes good theology (noticed you went to Ligonier conference) and read your response about what type of women men prefer (I also for sure disagreed with the original post, by the way), with some awesome hobbies (writing, music, exploring, climbing, etc). 

Here’s a little bit about me: I’m a twenty-nine year old guy who lives in Ann Arbor MI, goes to a church called Mosaic Church here (part of the Acts 29 network) and works at the University of Michigan managing educational software projects. 

I’m an outgoing guy and I have lots of hobbies. I love music a ton (listening and playing), plan a lot of social things with my community group and friends, play sports often, love humor, read a good bit (currently in Lord of the Rings and A Praying Life), grow plants, etc. I lead worship at church and also lead a community group. 

Anyways, just wanted to reach out and see if you’d be up for getting to know each other. If not, no worries, and I totally understand! But I’d like to if you’re interested! I was impressed and surprised with how up-front he was about his intentions. I already had a sense that he wasn’t the type of guy to risk very little in order to preserve his ego or to play it safe. 

I felt in that moment, the decision I had to make, held a sense of stepping off of the edge of something. 

For so long I’d lived in a predictable, safe, hallowed space away from the risk of hurt. But despite the threat of giving all of that up, I knew that responding to his message and getting to know him was the next right thing. 

It was the first time that a decision like this wasn’t born of recklessness or intense feelings. It was instead a response driven by obedience to the way it seemed the Lord was leading me.

Just over a week later I wrote this in my journal:

I’ve met someone. I’m getting to know someone and I’m terrified. 

Relationships used to bring me a sense of security. I always wanted to be married. But after two years of being single, relationships are what’s hard. They confront all of my fears, insecurities, and scars. 

Giving this guy a chance has been an act of obedience. Every day is an act of faith as I learn to open and risk my heart again.

_________

As we got to know a little bit about each other over text messages there was an almost instant connection. 

But before long David asked if we could speak on the phone. I was absolutely terrified. 

It was so much easier to communicate through text messaging. It felt like it afforded me a lower risk investment in getting to know him and I liked that there was a degree of separation.  

I could carefully construct answers and have time to process and think about each message that went back and forth. But a phone conversation felt like removing that wall. A wall which I’d begun to hide behind. 

When he asked if we could speak on the phone it was another moment that obedience, bravery and faith were required if I was to take the next steps forward in getting to know him. 

When I answered his first call a couple days later, his voice was casual but warm. I even questioned whether this phone call was as big of a deal to him as it was for me. But his ability to comfortably lead in the conversation was what I needed. He set me at ease and I found myself slowly relaxing and having fun as we playfully posed trivia questions to each other about the areas we lived in. 

My ability to be engaging and interesting and enough, even in a phone conversation, had remained question marks in my mind for the last two years. 

In so many ways, I had healed and gained confidence, but I still questioned so many different parts of myself. I didn’t know how it would feel to once again be in a season of getting to know someone and opening myself up to being assessed and scrutinized. That feeling of being found wanting or lacking in something was something that I never wanted to feel again. 

During that phone conversation David casually mentioned that he’d be visiting San Francisco with a few friends and asked if I had any recommendations for things they should see or do. 

I wasn’t sure what to think of him mentioning that he’d be so close by. I made no mention of the possibility of meeting, and I named a few things they might want to do while they were there.  

Our phone conversation lasted over two hours. 

I was so relieved, not only because I had overcome a hurdle and done something I was very nervous about, but relieved because it had gone so well. 

We connected just as well on the phone as we did over our many messages.

My parents were still up reading in their room when I got off of the phone and I excitedly went to tell them how it had gone. 

There was always a place to sit in my parent’s room, whether it was their bed or a chair, which was regularly frequented by myself and my other siblings who still lived at home. We always knew we could sit and talk to them about nothing and everything. 

In the last few years my parents had become my confidantes, my friends, and I had already appreciated the ability to be open in sharing every detail with them about David’s and my interactions.

I had come to value their advice and their experience and it was important to me that they be included in my excitement, my questions, and in all of my decision-making along the way. 

My parents were thankful that things had gone well, but I know that they also felt a sense of sadness, too. The mere possibility of me having to someday move was in the back of all of our minds. 

Just a couple of days later David asked if we could meet in-person when he came to California. 

With how well things were going between us I knew that question had been coming. I also knew that it was the next step in this journey, no matter where it would end up, and with faith and excitement (and terror) I said yes.

Click here for Part 2 of Noticing Wonder: a love story