Ocean.

As we put the exclamation point on all things 2016 (or maybe just a cold, hard period, depending on circumstance) I’m sitting here thinking about all the ways in which my life has changed this year. Last December, as we approached this wild ride, I was hopeful and optimistic, which isn’t a place I spent a lot of time in the last several years. I had been faithfully camped out in cynical, jaded, and discontent for a variety of reasons, but heading into 2016 felt exciting. It really was a new feeling for me. And honestly, the year didn’t disappoint.

I’m in Hawaii right now, just minutes away from beautiful beaches and roaring ocean – a place my heart does feel very much at home. I feel like all things come into perspective when you stand there staring into miles of deep blue. A couple of years ago, I stood on the coast of California, looking over the beaches of Malibu and under a foggy picture of coastline, I captioned, “No one is impressed with themselves when they stand at the edge of the ocean. No one looks out at its immensity and marvels at their own greatness.” They aren’t my words, but I feel the truth of it in my bones. I don’t know what does it for you – what puts all of life into glaring perspective, but for me it has always been the ocean. So I’m thankful to be here now, looking back on a year that made me feel seen and loved in ways I’ve never known before, but also reflecting on the ways in which I am still just a small piece of a larger story. A tiny speck in the span of eternity. The littlest grain of sand on the whole stretch of beach.

Maybe for you 2016 was a little bit of what it was for me. Exciting. Fun. Fresh. Challenging. I know I have grown a lot this year. I’ve been pushed in new ways both in relationship and in my own heart. I have worked through obstacles and roadblocks that I had previously just pushed to the back of my mind and my heart and preferred to pretend weren’t there. I took timid steps into a relationship that blew my heart wide open and while I started this year single, I end it engaged to be married to a man who loves me both fiercely and graciously. In 2016 I opened myself up to vulnerability, especially here on these pages with you and that has offered a wide world of growth and opportunity. There were new chances to build bridges and be courageous. My own vulnerability has allowed others to be brave in their lives as well, and I don’t say that in a bragging way, I’m just telling you the facts because of the messages I have received after each new post. I’m so thankful for the small ways in which I have been able to speak to others, though I think Flannery O’Connor said it best when she wrote, “If I ever do get to be a fine writer, it will not be because I am a fine writer but because God has given me credit for a few of the things He kindly wrote for me.” Amen and amen.

However, I know many people who feel that this year was by far their worst. They are willing to crumple up this year of their lives and throw it into the fire, watching it burn down to ash and blow away in the wind. It hurt too much. It cut too deep. The moments seared into your memory for all of time. Some of you felt that this year and I wish so much that I could hug you enough to make the pain go away. That we could all say the right words or do the very thing that heals that wounded place. I have not experienced great loss in the form of death, but I have felt the sting of heartbreak and the ways in which it will forever change the shape of your heart. I have spent years in the throes of discontent and hurt and being a victim of my own circumstance. That pain will trap you and hold you hostage. That kind of grief will rip away all the days in front of you forevermore if you let it. And sometimes that’s just what you want it to do because you can’t bear the thought of another day like the last. It would be just very alright with you if you didn’t have to feel this way anymore because the days are dragging on and on and the pain just won’t subside. The salve offered in words and hugs just doesn’t seem to close up the gaping flesh wound on your soul. And over that I pray that 2017 is a year of healing. A year of soul mending. A year of baby steps forward, even as you might stumble and fall. I pray for you right this very minute that you would feel your little heart held in the hands of a very big God who knows and sees and understands. I pray you courageously walk into your new normal, walking with a limp, maybe, but still walking.

But whatever 2016 was for you, there is only one day left. And to be honest, the dawn of 2017 is not going to change anything. I hate to break it to you if you’re the type that waits for the coming of the new year to feel new and different - like midnight on January 1 is going to bring a new sense of stamina and resolve to whatever it is you wish to do away with in 2016. It might for a little while. But it won’t feel different or be any different if you don’t do anything different. It’s just another day on the calendar unless you’re willing to finally do some real heart work. If you finally lean into the pain and walk through it. If you reach out with a heart of forgiveness and a desire to reconcile. 2017 will be just the same as 2016 unless your own heart steps up to the plate and says it’s ready.

I think the most important thing you can do in whatever season you find yourself in is to work on your own heart. Open your ears and close your mouth. Listen - to God, to others. Dial in to where you need to mend some hurts, declutter your soul, bring new things to light. I read the other day that if you’re the same person you were six months ago, you’re not trying hard enough - or something along those lines. If you’re the same person – if you’re not pursuing growth, if you’re not pursuing new things and questioning your own convictions or asking the Lord where he would have you grow, you’re really just wasting precious time in your current season. What are you doing to grow and become? Don’t hear me say that we constantly have to strive to be more, but I do think there is always heart work to be done, some area where God is pushing you in your own sanctification if you are willing to listen.

The thing is, it’s easier to curate your Instagram feed than cultivate your heart. Like it’s easy to post a selfie or a photo of you and your person or a thing you did and make it look fancy and perfect, but maybe you’re ignoring some areas that need some work in your own life. No one sees internal heart work – at least not in process. No one can comment on it or like it or give you a flame emoji confirmation that you’re looking great that day. Heart work happens in the quiet moments, the unseen, the seemingly unnoticed. Heart work is hard work. And it seems that if transformation of heart and life takes more than three minutes in a microwave oven, we’re out. If the instruction manual is longer than a tweet’s worth of text, then too long; didn’t read. But don’t bow out because it’s hard. If there’s anything I can tell you to do, it’s lean in. Call that friend. Make an appointment with a counselor. Throw out the junk food. Kick the habit. Reconcile with your family to the best of your ability. Read your Bible and figure out how to stay in the story. Offer forgiveness. Seek to be a person of compassion and empathy. Resolve to live worthy. 

I guess I just don’t want to be stagnant. That’s what I want for 2017. I want to pursue growth and open my heart to change and if you know me at all, that’s a scary sentence for me to write. But the world needs more than a bunch of people sitting comfortable in their dormancy and unwillingness to see areas where they need to grow. One of the ways I’m pursuing my own growth is attending a writer’s conference in February and then, of course, marriage is going to change everything. Also, the fact that I might be moving for the first time in 32 years? Eeek! It feels a little daunting when you look at it from 30,000 feet. My mom had to often remind me when I got overwhelmed with homework to just take it one thing at a time. Don’t look at the whole syllabus. Just look at the next day. So let’s take 2017 one step at a time and see where we might be led.

I read recently about Dr. Helen Roseveare who was a missionary in the Congo in 60s. She just went home to Heaven not that long ago, but she was single for her whole life, completely devoted to helping others and sharing Jesus. Even after being raped and imprisoned, she continued to wring her life out for the sake of the gospel and if that's not something to aspire to, I don't know what is. Helen was well-acquainted with acute suffering but even in the midst of it she heard God ask her, 

"Can you thank Me for trusting you with this experience even if I never tell you why?"

Her words pierced my heart. God will ask us to walk through some things in the coming year that we might think we can't handle. He might ask us to carry something we don't think we're strong enough to carry. But he's trusting us with an experience that is ultimately for our good. The bigger story we're a part of, the real meaning in all of it, is his story of redeeming and reconciling all things to himself. When I stand on the beaches here in Hawaii, I remember how small I am and how much I can't control. But there is one who tells the waves where to break. He holds back the ocean from dry land. The waves and wind still know His name. He holds the seas and he holds your heart. 

I think it was Maya Angelou who said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” I just want to do better this year. Pursue the things I feel called to pursue and let go of all the rest. Let’s walk together into this new set of days as people willing to stretch the bounds of comfortable, embracing vulnerability and courage. Take a minute today to get away from it all and get some perspective. Stand at the edge of the (real or metaphorical) ocean. Remember that you are small but mighty and you were made to do great things. Trust that God will walk you through it - that he's trusting you with each new experience laid before you. Let's make the necessary changes we need to make and stop waiting for tomorrow. Let this be the year. 

Hope.

After I voted in the election last month, I posted this on Facebook:

So we vote today and then we move onward and forward. Don’t let the choice of your neighbor or your coworker or your best friend change the way you view them. I’ve heard so often, “If you vote for _____, then I’ll really know what to think about you.” Believe today instead that everyone is making the wisest decision for themselves based on what they know and the experiences they have had that have shaped their beliefs. Believe instead that who your neighbor and your coworker and your best friend are to you on any other Tuesday is who they really are and the decision they make on the ballot is simply that – one decision. We are all doing the best we can with what we know and you are not better or smarter or more right for choosing a specific candidate. Don’t let today hold more weight than it needs to and don’t let today’s outcome drive you to despair. Today we vote and tomorrow we go on, continuing to live the way we have always been called – loving God and loving others and drawing people into community and life together.

I wrote it because of all the fearful rhetoric swirling around this election. I will admit there were times in the weeks and months leading up to it all that I felt a little bit anxious. I was vocal back in October about not being a fan of either candidate and that’s still the truth. But now that we have our answer to over a year of mud-slinging and fact-checking, it seems the world really only believed we could move onward and forward with Mrs. Clinton as president-elect, as evidenced by the level of mourning, lamenting, and gnashing of teeth happening on every social media front since the winner was announced. I wrote those sentiments fully believing that our nation would elect its first woman president, even though she would not receive my vote. And even in the face of that I still believed we would and could move onward and forward. 

But the news is still overflowing with despair and defeat. Granted, I'm only 32, but it seems people are crying and scared and lost in a way that I have never seen post-election. In an interview she did with Oprah, Michelle Obama said what we are feeling right now, this is the feeling of having no hope. Eeeek! Punch me in the heart! Is that what everyone is feeling? Maybe. But what is most astonishing to me is the number of Christians who appear to be feeling the same way and I just have to say, what are you doing? Did you have false hope in a presidential candidate? Did you push all your chips in where they didn't belong? Because that’s the only reason for this level of heartsickness. I can understand if the person who held the office was our only hope, but we know better! At least I hope we do. 

I was talking to Aaron about this and we both came around to the conclusion that if Donald Trump is the worst President we’ve ever had, it will still be okay. God knew this was the outcome before we did. He is not panicked this morning. He is not waking up to a chaotic world and wondering how it happened. He sees the next four years and the next four after that on into eternity and still breathes hope. It's like this illustration I heard recently:

Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, would say that to be human is to have your face pushed up against a stained glass window. You see some color, but you see a lot of broken glass. It is only given to God and those who are with him to be back far enough to see the whole window.

There is some reason for this election outcome, we just can't see the whole window. But maybe the reason is that this is our chance to really be the Church we’re called to be. What if this is our time to shine in the face of darkness? Like Queen Esther, what if we're here for such a time as this? The only thing we can do now is to pray for our President-elect, for his family, and for the people he surrounds himself with as he steps into a very weighty role. The only thing we can do is love our neighbors harder, make sure they know that we are behind them and for them and will do what we can to make sure that they feel included. The Church can and should step into that space. This is our calling. 

The election is behind us (can I get a thousand amens?) and now we go back to our communities and love well the people who are around us, working with us, living next to us. I think it’s easy to say that – to just love them. Everyone can get behind that sentiment. Love, love, love. But loving doesn’t mean agreeing. It means disagreeing and still choosing to come to the table. It means taking opposing views and still going in for the hug and saying, “You belong.” I was listening to a podcast and he was talking about how we don’t really understand the gospel until we can get in community with people we don’t agree with, get offended, and learn to give and receive forgiveness. This is the heart of what we believe. So in the face of much disagreement and division, there is no better time to look at our neighbors and say, “We’re in this together.” Get to know them. Build community with them. Stop reading the news and start listening to the stories of your neighbors. Find ways to get outside yourself and help others. Offer the hope weary souls are so desperately hungry to find.

I’m not fearful or worried about the results of the election because I think we now have a unique opportunity to step into the tender places and be love and light and bridge the gaps that have become so deep over the last 18 months. We might feel broken and we might feel defeated, but we do not despair and we do not add to the noise because we know that it is in the broken and the hurting places that we can point toward wholeness and healing. We know the way. Stop acting like we’re all lost together. Christian, I want to look you in the eyes and remind you that we’re not lost. Do you know this? Did you forget? Honestly, what hope do we have to offer if we’re reeling in much the same way as someone who really has no hope?

I just finished reading this super great book called Boundaries and this should be required reading on the syllabus for human life because I think we're all so guilty of not having healthy boundaries within our relationships, myself included. So I'm personally working hard on this. But one of the things the authors point out is the difference between a responsibility for someone and a responsibility to someone. As the Church, we have a responsibility to step into the sad and broken places and shout from the top of our lungs, YOU ARE WELCOME HERE! We have a high calling to help people see the only safe place for their hope - the same place it was all along. How fitting for this time of year - the time when our very Hope came down to earth. Let's remember the words of our Christmas carols when we sing, A thrill of hope / The weary world rejoices. Do you know that we still have a reason to rejoice?

Rather than fear that our next president will ignite the end of all things on his very first day, rather than dwell on what may or may not happen, gather your people and speak truth and hope over them in fresh ways - preach it to yourself every morning. He is not our hope. The United States of America is not our hope. We move forward knowing that even if things turn awful and all the worst predictions come true, we do so with courage and a steadfast hope that these light and momentary afflictions are just that - light and momentary.

A couple of years ago now I journaled the words, “Jesus, be big!” Gosh, can that be our prayer today and tomorrow and into the next years? Be big today! Show up in new and significant ways. Be big and overcome the division, one conversation, one meal, one hug at a time. Be big in our hearts and quell the fear that seems to be running rampant. Be big in our world and help us to step into hurt places. Help us to remember we have hope to offer a weary world. You are our hope, now, at Christmas, on Inauguration Day, and always. 

..... 

P.S. It has been a couple of days now since this post and I would like to add that I hope you don't read this as a call to inaction. It is most certainly not. If, in the coming years, we have reason to protest on behalf of ourselves or our brothers and sisters because our liberties are being denied, then I will be the first to say that we should respond. Yes and amen! But even so, our hope lies elsewhere and we must do well to remember it.

Grace and love,
Lyndi

Dance.

In the days following my last post about our engagement, Aaron and I both received messages saying congratulations and how sweet our story is and how it reads like some kind of fairytale. I’ll be honest – I agree! Ha! It’s been crazy beautiful, super exciting, the gushiest kind of love. We have had some of the very sweetest moments together and it’s easy to share those with you. But as Aaron and I talked in the days following, we were both really quick to want to tell people that it hasn't all been rainbows and butterflies and constant bliss. I'm not trying to squash this moment of joy, but I want to tell the truth of how this current sweetness was birthed out of gritty, dirt-under-our-nails kind of heart work.

Several months ago, Aaron and I came to a crossroad as we found there were things we had been keeping from each other. Certainly as we began talking back in January and got to know each other better, we revealed little by little the intimate details about ourselves, choices we had made, grief we lived through. As a friend wrote on Facebook the other day, as adults at 29 and 32, Aaron and I have seen some things. It's likely you have too. We’ve lived some things. Hard things. Great things. All the things in between. And intimate relationship requires - demands - honesty and openness and living in the light. But there were pieces of our individual stories that we had still held back from each other.

Have you ever had that experience where a thought or an idea or a phrase just keeps coming up in different circumstances with different people? I feel like those are the things we really need to pay attention to and see if there's anything to be learned because there’s usually a reason it keeps coming up. There’s a reason you can’t seem to escape it. A few months ago, Aaron and I started talking a lot more about the idea of being fully known and fully loved. It came up in one of our conversations and then came up in the book I was reading and came up in the sermon I listened to and came up again with Aaron later. After one of our first conversations on the topic I even journaled, “I feel like God is trying to teach me something here and I want to be listening.”

I realized shortly that I had those feelings for a reason. I was being prompted and pushed and constantly pursued by God to rip the lid off the box I had so securely nailed shut with all the parts of me I didn’t want anyone to see. The one where I had staple-gunned the edges just to be sure they were safe and hidden. I felt God was quietly asking me to drag that one out of the back of the closet and dump it out all over the floor in front of Aaron.

Maybe we all fear that moment. There’s the one thing you’ve kept safe in your heart. One thing you don’t want to tell anyone. One thing you’re worried about other people finding out. You think that if they know, they won’t love you. If they know, they’ll run away. If they know, then you’re out there on your own and you’ve done the final thing to tip the scales. Or maybe it’s not one thing, maybe it’s a lot of things, and they’ve compounded over the years, adding more and more to the top of your pile so the lid doesn’t even shut on your box anymore. Maybe the only thing people know about you is the façade you’ve presented – the one you want them to know and believe more than anything. It’s the version of you that you think would be best and safest and least messy for all involved because if they knew that you really thought ______ or did _______ or believed ________, then surely, surely there would be no one left by your side.

I realized over the last several months that I’ve never been fully known. I’ve never told someone all there is to know about the darkness of my heart and the places that still throb from wounding. I’ve never been fully honest with one single person about the things that really messed me up in my thinking about God and authority and sex and relationships. No one really knew the ways in which my heart was broken and then put back together piecemeal and jagged and no longer naive. I don’t know if I even knew the extent of it all. So when I decided to empty this little treasure trove of secrets on the floor and I was left feeling like a pile of bones and I realized what God was teaching me about being known and loved, it was like this tidal wave of grief and pain but also sweet relief.

While we looked at my junk, I told Aaron, “I think I’m the only one who is a wreck of a person.” Of course he laughed at me and said that was ridiculous. “Maybe other people are good hiders, too,” he said. Maybe they are - maybe we all are. But sweet Aaron, he looked at the junk dumped on the floor, then sat on the floor next to me and said, “I love you.”

I don’t know what I thought relationships were or how these bonds were formed but I can tell you that through the mess and the sorting of it all, we forged a bond that wasn’t there previously. There was no capacity in which it could form because our boxes sat stacked between us like this leaning tower of Jenga pieces and while we tried to reach around it and caught sight of each other in small glimpses, like peering through the peephole of a door, it was nothing like the moment of knocking the tower over and staring at each other, vulnerable and exposed, and saying, “Well, here it is.” We broke down the barriers between each other, between us and God, and between what we thought to be true all these years and what’s really true about who we are and where we stand.

What’s in the box? Different things for different people. Vices and addictions. Secrets and shame and self-hate. Sin and brokenness. Lies we’ve heard from others and lies we tell ourselves on repeat. Versions of the person we were and versions of the person we want to be but aren’t. All the ways we’ve held ourselves captive to guilt and rehearsed the reasons we are unworthy. God has been slowly chipping away at my heart over the last several years, trying desperately to help me to understand who I am and what I’m worth, meanwhile I’ve done a bang up job of not listening and putting my fingers in my ears like I do when I’m watching a scary movie. But when you’re engaged in real relationship, when you feel safe and cared for and heard, there will be a time when you must lay bare all the ways you’re scared and ashamed and the ways you’ve been running reckless for years. Ann Voskamp said in a blog post recently, “Shame dies when stories are told in safe places.” And in those safe places, with that one safe person you have or the small tribe of people you know who can speak to you fluent in the language of grace and truth, let them shower you with a real love that is only possible once you’re fully known.

In the midst of the undoing, of untangling some of the knots we had tied successively in the rope of our lives over the years, Aaron shared some music with me from a friend he met on a missions trip to Sweden several years ago. The album will now always tell the story of that season in our relationship as I listened to it on repeat for the weeks following. In the song, Saved, the lyrics say, 

I’ve been afraid of being honest / Losing track of how I felt / And it will put you into boxes

You'll find that hiding the truth will put you in boxes - or maybe you'll just put yourself there. You’ll shove parts of yourself to the back of the closet and present a prettier version – one that you feel might be worthy of a little love. But what are you hiding? Where the places you feel unsafe and unheard and unworthy? How is that affecting you now, even when the box is closed and hidden in the back of the closet? What lies are you believing about yourself and who can speak truth into those corners of your heart?

I read the book, Wild and Free, and around the time that Aaron and I started talking about this, I got to the chapter on being fully known and fully loved (of course!) and it goes on to talk about how we don’t live in the freedom of being fully known because we learn to love our captivity like some kind of kidnap victim with Stockholm Syndrome. We know how to operate in captivity. We know what it’s like to live with the things we’ve shoved away into boxes and pretend they aren’t there. It feels safer to keep living with our wings clipped because we know how to function within those bounds. Why do we care so much for our secrets, checking on them every day and patting them on the head for being good and staying hidden, but don’t see our freedom as something to be chased after and cherished – something much more worthy of our care and attention?

The rest of the song goes like this:

I’ve been afraid of being honest /Losing track of how I felt /And it will put you into boxes /But if you’re born wild / You can’t stay there…no way… We all need to be saved / Sometimes

You can’t stay in the box. You can’t let your box of junk keep you from deep relationship with other people. You were born to be wild and free and live under a banner of light and grace. Find someone to talk to – find someone who is safe and will listen and stay when it gets messy. I can honestly tell you that nothing you could ever tell me will shock me. I absolutely believe that given the right set of circumstances, the right amount of despair or hurt or disbelief or disillusionment, we are all capable of anything. So while I might cry with you, I refuse to pull away or say, "How could you... I would never...". If we believe the gospel in any capacity, we should all try to respond this way. We should all rejoice when someone dares to drag darkness into the light. How and when you choose to do this is entirely up to you, but you do need to let someone fully know who you are and where you’ve been and let that uncovering, the dumping out of the box, let it free you from years of hurt and struggle and believing the lies that you are not worthy.

One of my favorite songs on that same album is called Faith. The lyric that makes me cry almost every time, the lyric that speaks the most truth to me right now, the one that makes me feel like we have so much to do and so little time and so much glorious life to live in the freedom that God is calling us to – the freedom that comes with being fully known and fully loved is,

What do we do with our feet on the ground when the sky's asking us to dance?

We have such precious little time to live and love and be loved. Don't squander it in hiding. Don't believe the lie that there is no redemption for you. I know that one. I know exactly how it sounds and the way it parades as truth. But, Aaron and I stepped into the light with each other and, gosh, it was like the whole earth shifted that day. It hasn't all been fairytale and we know it won't be going forward either, but we are willing to do the work it requires to live in the light of truth and join the dance and that's our only hope for you too, because honestly, that's where things have the potential to get really, really sweet.

Wish.

On January 25, 2016, I wrote in my journal that for some strange reason I couldn't explain, I felt like Aaron might one day be my husband. 

On November 11, 2016, Aaron asked me to be his wife. 

WHAT! I know. Crazy, right? This year, let me tell you. It has been nothing I could have ever imagined - more than I ever knew to how to ask for from God. And needless to say, the last two weeks have been especially exciting and highly emotional. Like even right now, I just feel a little bit like crying and I don’t know why!

But before we get to the proposal, I just have to back up so that I can always, always remember the way those two weeks transpired. Because just over a week ago Aaron proposed to me, but a week before that he surprised me by even coming to Nebraska in the first place! Aaron and I last saw each other in August when he came home for a couple of weeks and then the next time we planned to see each other was this December when I fly out to Hawaii after Christmas. We were patiently (and some days, not so patiently) counting down the days to when we could actually be together and not just stare at each other’s faces through our phone screens. If you don't know, the time difference between Nebraska and Hawaii is, most of the year, five hours. So we are at completely different points in our day ALL OF THE TIME. I know there are more difficult relationship hurdles, but trust me, this is not ideal... unless you're trying to surprise your girlfriend by flying across the ocean overnight.

The day Aaron surprised me by showing up at my office, I was under the impression that he would be getting up early to go boogie boarding with his brother-in-law. This seemed exactly zero percent suspicious to me. They had planned it for over a week and I assumed that I wouldn’t talk to Aaron until after he got to work that day, which was 1 pm central time.

Just after 1:00, Aaron sent me a message to let me know that he made it to work. We talked briefly before he said he had to head off to a meeting at work that “shouldn’t be more than an hour.” Meanwhile, Heath (his brother-in-law) posted a photo of Aaron on Instagram that appeared to be Aaron heading into the water, boogie board in hand. See?

The afternoon went on and I didn't talk to Aaron too much. He got out of his "meeting" (which I later found out was a flight from Minneapolis to Omaha) but he kept telling me what a busy day it was at work and that there were some urgent things to get done. Late in the afternoon my own boss called me into a meeting. I had been sick for the entire week, even stayed home from work for two days and still barely had my voice back, so when I'm sitting in the meeting and started to feel like I might cough, I had a minor panic attack because I knew it wouldn’t be a dainty little throat-clearing. So I excused myself and headed back to my desk and I’ll just let the video tell the rest of the story.

So, Aaron pulled off an epic surprise! People keep asking, "Did you have any idea?" None. He worked with my family, my boss, my friends and his family to make sure I had no idea he was coming to Nebraska for my birthday. It was amazing! I still don’t really have words for how I felt when I turned around and he was there in my office! A moment I will never forget.

The rest of the week was really normal. We talked about what we might do for my birthday, made dinners together, spent time with family, and since I had no vacation time, I went to work and he met me downtown each day for my hour lunch break. I mean, how sweet is he? Yikes. I don’t know if I have the words. 

On that Friday morning, the day he proposed, Aaron brought me coffee.

"Oh, babe! It's 11/11," he said. "Make a wish." He acted like he just realized the date, but this was his whole plan, you guys. Don't let him fool you.

He doesn't know this but I didn't make a wish. I just said a silent thank you, being ever grateful for this sweet man who made me feel so special.

That morning I went to work thinking it was just another day where he would meet me for lunch, but when lunchtime rolled around and I hadn’t really heard from him, I sent him a text and asked if he was coming. His response was to ask if my boss was still in the office. "Yes?"

Apparently he had already talked to my boss that morning (AGAIN!) and worked it out with her for me to leave even though we were short-staffed and it was a super busy time of year for us. What a dreamboat! Jailbreak from work for a super delicious birthday lunch? Yes please! So we head to lunch and when he keeps checking his watch, I ask if we’re in a rush and he says we have somewhere to be at 1:30 but wouldn’t tell me where we were headed. Eeek! Can you tell that he loves a good surprise?

Next thing I know, we arrive at a spa where he says I’m getting a manicure, pedicure and a massage. WHAT! I started crying as we waited for my appointment. I have never, in the history of Lyndi, dated someone who I felt like remembered or cared about my birthday. Honestly, one guy waited until 11 pm to even acknowledge that it was my birthday and the guy before that never said anything. (Wow, hi, my name is Lyndi and I don’t know how to get a clue. *Hiiiiii Lyndi*)

So Aaron leaves me at the spa and says he will pick me up at 5:00 when my appointments are over. I spent the next three hours in the lap of luxury.

Clearly, I was having a terrible time.

By this point I had added to my Snapchat story several times and a few friends were snapping me back with things like “WHAT! Nails done? You’re totally getting engaged.” I denied it and really, truly believed myself. Getting engaged was maybe 1-2% on my radar. Do radars work in percents? Maybe. Anyway, I told them I wasn’t and this was just all for my birthday! Of course it was! It was birthday weekend!

My massage finished up and I head out to the reception area to see if Aaron was back yet, but the woman at the counter handed me my car keys. "These are for you!" she said, smiling. I walk out to my car to find this:

I mean, is this a dream? When I was telling the cute girl who did my nails the story of how Aaron surprised me by showing up in Nebraska she said, “Wow, I feel like that kind of stuff only happens in the movies.” And I’m sitting there like, “RIGHT?!”

Now I’m in my car with a bunch of roses and the sweetest card that says to go home and get ready for dinner where attire is “fancy to fancy-schmancy.” So I head home to shower and get ready and next was a flurry of texts between my mom and sisters as they helped me decide what to wear. I'm still amazed at how casual everyone acted at every point in all these surprises. Oscars for everyone!

When Aaron arrived and I opened the door to see him standing there I about melted into a Lyndi-puddle. He was wearing a new shirt and tie and a new leather coat and ohmygosh. Dead. The only thing I had in my head was, “Wow. Best birthday ever.” As we're walking out the door, my sister texted and said she wanted a picture of us together, and because we're the sassy people we are, we sent her this one: 

So we go to dinner and talk and laugh a lot over crab cakes and wine and steak and salmon. Aaron and I have never had a problem coming up with things to talk about and this dinner was mostly just reminiscing on the last year of our lives from my last birthday to this one and how much had changed. At one point, it was also almost about my literal death, because I choked so hard on a potato that I was one half of a second from needing the Heimlich. I don’t try to cause a scene *everywhere* I go, but I like to keep it interesting, you know?

So we both live through dinner and to my knowledge we are headed back to my apartment, until Aaron takes a different street and we wind up in our church parking lot. I thought we were possibly showing up at a surprise birthday party? I didn't know. That was the only thought in my head on this day full of complete surprises.

Aaron told me previously that he first saw me when he was in high school. As he tells it, he was too shy to talk to girls and I was “a tornado.” I still don’t know what he means by that since I’m so quiet and shy and introverted, but maybe I’ll figure it out someday. So Aaron pulls up next to the building on our church campus where he saw me and retells the story of his first sighting and then we walk toward the main building of our church. I said, “Babe, these doors are going to be locked,” just as he magically pulls open the far left door. Do the surprises ever end?

At this point I was still oblivious. I thought we were maybe going for a post-dinner coffee in the coffee shop where I work but rather than up the stairs to the shop, he leads me into the main auditorium. The lights were low except for the stage. He walks me down the aisle where I usually sit for church. This also happens to be the place of our very first face-to-face conversation last November. “Remember when I came down and talked to you and your friends?” “Uh, yeah, and I thought you were SO CUTE!” I really did. He was and is so stinkin’ cute.

Aaron walked us both down the aisle and up to the main stage. It was at this point, and ONLY at this point, that I was finally thinking, “Wait… is this?... is he?...” He was holding me close and smiling so sweetly and I wish I could remember what he said but I remember thinking, “Oh, this is happening, wow, this thing that I never ever ever thought would happen is happening right this minute. Be here now. Hold on to this very moment that you never thought would come.”

And then I wept. 

When Aaron came into my life more fully earlier this year, it was like my heart started to wake up and dream again about what it might be like to not live my whole life alone. Throughout our relationship I really felt God pushing me and asking me to take these next steps in a relationship with him even though it was scary for me. My relationship history is riddled with some trial and lots of error because I had no understanding of myself and God's plan for me. But over the last year, each of us kept taking baby steps forward as we felt led and, gosh, has it been so worth it.

Last Sunday night, the church I go to had a celebration service for the fact that we are now completely debt-free for the first time in 53 years. One of the quotes I read in the program for the evening was, “Where there is no risk, there is no faith.” Isn’t that so true? Where you’re so comfortable and sitting inside your little circle of safety, your faith isn’t required. There won’t be moments when you’re hanging on by a fingernail and yelling for God to show up because why would you need him when you’re cozy and comfortable and safe?

Relationship involves risk. There is always risk when you’re saying to another person, “Yes, I’m with you, whatever comes.” What if they break your heart? But what if they add more joy than you ever knew possible? Aaron and I had previously talked about our fears in relationship and marriage and I asked him about that after we got engaged and he said, "Sometimes you just have to do it afraid." Which, wouldn't you know, has been my own motto for years as I walked through my own scary things. "Where there is no risk, there is no faith." 

Our friends and our family have celebrated us so well these last couple of weeks and we just want to say thank you. We're excited for the faith journey that this will be together and the way we will be led to take the next steps forward in our relationship, which we have always felt to be of God and for him. 

A lot of people have recently reminded me how I used to say I would get married on the 1st of Never. I get it, I was annoying in the refrain I taught myself to believe. But, wouldn't you know, I guess 'Never' finally rolled around. What a dream.