I write from a dog-sitting job for a friend here in Denver, enjoying a covered porch and a pleasantly cool day and the sound of birds discussing something arbitrary in the neighbor’s trees a distance away. Life marches on at an almost frantic pace sometimes and I’m finding it more and more difficult to keep tabs on its advance. And yet, days like these melt slowly and I’m thankful for slow moments even when it feels like weeks and months speed by faster than ever.

A couple posts ago, I described my life’s most important development that has slowly solidified over the last handful of years. I fell in love; we experienced crisis and turmoil because of it; we waited and watched for God; and slowly our paths wound their way around each other’s and into formal relationship.

Starting December of 2020, we have walked a long, contemplative, often painful journey. It has taken place across months and years and countries. It has challenged me to my core over and over again. I’m so thankful for what our story looks like now. I still often chew on big, unanswered questions and thoughts that may never be fully put to rest until we stand before God face to face and can interrogate them more directly. And as of just over a month ago, JT and I are engaged to be married and to commit to doing this thing together until we’ve lived all our days.

We’ll get married in the fall this year. We’ll promise to coalesce our lives’ paths into a single one — to fuse our dreams, our passions, our hopes, our hurts, our weaknesses, and our mistakes. To tackle the rest of our adversities together as one. To love no other human more and to tie our futures and fortunes together, no matter what comes around the bend.

JT and I feel the weight of making our relationship official in this way, and we also are deeply, immensely thankful for the path we’ve walked so far. We acknowledge the voices of those who dissent, and we appreciate the voices that stand in our corner, walking with as much grace and compassion and humility as we can between them. I’m dumbfounded, humbled, thrilled, and wildly thankful to have found a partner like her and to have been asked to commit to her one of the biggest things we can offer in this life — the whole of my love and loyalty and affection and everything else I have to offer. Here’s to a busy summer; here’s to the incredible honor and privilege I look forward to in getting to commit myself to the good of my love for keeps; and here’s to the next season to come.

Thank you so much to each and all of you who have watched this story from afar. Thank you for your love and support. We’re both here for you and are always a message away. Until next,

-LS