Joel and Kel­ly Jean met the fall of 2009 at their church small group. She had recent­ly moved to Fort Collins for a new job and he had recent­ly switched from the “the Rock” (the col­lege group) to Sym­bio (the young adult group). They talked about pho­tog­ra­phy. She faked knowl­edge and vowed to talk to him as lit­tle as pos­si­ble so she wouldn’t look igno­rant. They talked off and on for the next year. Dis­agree­ing over impor­tant mat­ters — like the col­or of her car — and each refus­ing to back down (it’s gray by the way… or maybe pur­ple…). Kel­ly Jean ran­dom­ly told a friend that fall that Joel was who she “should” like. She con­sid­ered and tried, but wasn’t inter­est­ed. She shrugged and moved on — unaware that Joel had told a friend that he was inter­est­ed in KJ.

Despite their dis­agree­ments and each one’s desire to win every argu­ment, they con­tin­u­al­ly found them­selves in long con­ver­sa­tions. Both hes­i­tant to leave. Con­ver­sa­tions that were inter­est­ing, intel­lec­tu­al, the­o­log­i­cal and enter­tain­ing. They would hole up in the nar­row gal­ley kitchen of his apart­ment and talk for an hour with­out break — bare­ly aware of the oth­ers around them. Or linger at the entry­way talk­ing long after every­one else had left team and his room­mates retired for the night.

Decem­ber of 2010 they wan­dered around Old Town, Fort Collins with friends — talk­ing, laugh­ing, enjoy­ing the Christ­mas lights — and KJ noticed some­thing: a chival­ry, a gra­cious­ness she’d nev­er seen before. They went on a road trip with oth­ers from Sym­bio to a con­fer­ence called Faith­walk­ers over New Year’s that year. Some­how (you’d have to ask Joel about that) they end­ed up sit­ting next to each oth­er for the entire 5 hour jour­ney to Grand Junc­tion. Kel­ly Jean was still on guard and often frus­trat­ed by Joel, but amaz­ing­ly they talked for the entire trip with bare­ly a break and it was a speedy, pleas­ant ride. Over the short retreat, they became friends. The for­mer frus­tra­tions seemed to fade away and their friend­ship grew: aid­ed by the ‘coin­ci­dence’ of Joel always sit­ting direct­ly next to Kel­ly Jean (a fact she bare­ly noticed at the time).

Joel fell ill the day they were to return home and Kel­ly Jean stayed behind to take care of him — dos­ing him up on drugs and gin­gerale to sur­vive the trip. She kept an eye on him the entire way back while he dozed and mend­ed. Joel saw a ten­der­ness that trip that he hadn’t seen before and KJ saw a gen­tle­ness of spir­it. He (with great deter­mi­na­tion) was pleas­ant and com­pli­ant and com­plete­ly non-whiny despite being sick.  He began to trust KJ and to think of her as the world’s best nurse.

Joel moved to Fed­er­al Heights (near Den­ver) in May, 2011 to be clos­er to his job. He dat­ed anoth­er girl that fall and sud­den­ly KJ real­ized that if Joel mar­ried some­one else, they wouldn’t be able to talk as often. And that she’d miss him. Joel and the girl broke up and he start­ed com­ing back to church in Fort Collins. She made an effort to be a good friend and before either of them real­ized it, they were both active­ly seek­ing each oth­er out. Talk­ing exten­sive­ly in cor­ners of kitchens and liv­ing rooms, movie the­aters and church foyers.

She went to Dis­ney World in Feb­ru­ary, 2012 and couldn’t stop think­ing about him. Came home and prayed like crazy. Talked to friends. Talked to fam­i­ly. And prayed and prayed. He too was pray­ing and seek­ing coun­sel — ask­ing the advice of dear friends. Imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the first church ser­vice after her Dis­ney trip he bound­ed over the church pews to ask her about her trip. She was tak­en aback with his inter­est in her and it was at that point he began to active­ly pur­sue her. He would lat­er say that he sim­ply could­n’t help him­self, she was too amaz­ing in his eyes to not be drawn to her.

May 12, 2012 He arrived at her house with ros­es, a col­lec­tion of vers­es and a huge smile. She shook and fid­get­ed and bit her lip. Unable to find any words as he asked if she would be will­ing to pur­sue rela­tion­ship with him with the hopes that it would lead towards mar­riage. Final­ly, she smiled and nodded.

Exact­ly 7 months lat­er he led her to a cor­ner by Cin­derel­la cas­tle and asked her to be his wife. She shook and curled her toes. Unable to find the words until he asked again. Then qui­et­ly answered ‘yes’.

Their jour­ney con­tin­ues today, and you could cer­tain­ly say it was a most unex­pect­ed journey…