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“A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God by telling the truth,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.”

He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”

Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”

He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?”

Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”

The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.”

(John 9:24-34)

Believe or not, Andrew and I have gotten a lot of slack about our relationship. Most of it is because we know that we're getting married and we've only been dating for four months. Yeah, I know. You're probably reading this and saying, "Well, yeah!" I understand. I think it's crazy too... I think it's really crazy that I can only know someone so well since January, start dating them in March and then decide that we want to be together for the rest of our lives two weeks later. I get that. 

You know what else is weird? It was weird that God asked a man to build a huge boat claiming a huge flood was coming from water falling out of the sky when nothing that like had ever happened before. It was weird that God spoke through a burning bush. It was weird when God told Joshua to lead all of Israel to walk around a huge wall for many days and then shout at it to fall down. It was weird when David killed a giant with three small stones and a slingshot. It was weird when Mary became pregnant as a virgin to give birth to the Son of God. It was weird that Jesus was born in a stable. It was weird how Jesus healed the blind man by using spit and dirt like in the story above. No, I'm not claiming that Andrew and I being brought together by God is anything as spectacular as those stories... at least to anyone else but us. All I'm saying is that God work in very mysterious ways and the things that He does do not always make sense to us.

I have thought about writing out Andrew and mine's story on here for a while now for all of the curious people (doubters and supporters) to read and maybe, hopefully, understand how God orchestrated the whole thing. So, I'm going to do it. I'm going to tell our beautiful, amazing, and grace-filled story. 

The first time I saw Andrew was in my very first Monday morning 8am class at North Greenville. I was one of the first people to class because I was very nervous. I might not have been a freshman, but I was new to the school and knew maybe one person in the entire place. One by one people filed into the small mac lab and then last but not least was the guy that I thought to be the most attractive guy I had seen at the school so far, definitely at least in that class. To be honest, I did not think anything of it though. He didn't seem to notice me, so I thought, and I focused on the class that was being started. I never spoke to him. Some time later, our teacher asked us if we wanted to be a part of a video challenge to see if any of us could handle the big film conference that every Mass Communication student at NGU wanted to attend. I raised my hand, even though I was self conscious the entire time. For some reason I felt like God had put my hand in the air, and that I was just playing puppet to His plan. I was put on a team with the two guys in the back of the room that were always laughing during class. One of them was the hot guy I had noticed from before.

At that time, I had already been talking to other guys... trying to figure out the whole dating thing again since my heartache earlier that year. It was really hard for me and I was so confused. I was a broken, single girl at this college where it seemed everyone was either dating or engaged. Andrew was going through his own healing from personal issues at the time and nothing ever clicked for us during that video project. We got along fine, but we never really talked. Little did I know, the whole time we worked together, he thought I was a beautiful girl that he never thought he'd have a chance with in a million years. I think it's so amazing and oddly funny how God kept us from growing close during that time. We were both were in major stages of healing and growing. It was like God was laughing the entire time saying softly, "Just you wait..." Neither of us had no clue what He was cooking up. 

After many confusing "relationships" I had been involved in, I finally gave up dating and surrendered my desire for a human companion and focused solely on falling in love with Christ. Which ended up actually being a controversial topic to many of the opinionated Christians around me who didn't like the fact that I referred to me giving up dating as "dating Jesus." While I was trying to defend my choice in following what God had asked me to do for Him, God was teaching me many lessons that I can now look back on and see how it all led me to Andrew. During my time dating Jesus, He was preparing me for my future husband. Jesus led me to a deeper and more intimate relationship with Him where I learned that even if a man never came my way, He would be all that I would need. Jesus taught me different aspects of a godly wife and how I could become that woman that I so desired to be for my future husband. He also taught me, through a lot of criticism, that what He calls me to do is not always popular and most people will not get it. 

There were several people who were not okay with me dating Jesus, but I can honestly look back on that time and just love every memory I have from that period in my life. I would never take it back, despite all of the comments I got. My relationship with Jesus would not be what it is today if I had not made that choice... and later I would find out that my relationship with Andrew would not have been possible without that time. During the first semester I was pursued by a couple of different guys. I ended up not dating any of them due to the leading of my Savior. Me giving up dating is the main reason why I did not have a boyfriend first semester. I learned later from Andrew that if I had dated one of those guys from first semester, he probably would not have had the courage to share his feelings with me and who knows? I could possibly still be settling in a relationship that God had not intended for me instead of growing closer to the one man God put on this earth for me to love. 

Second semester rolls around and I find myself to be the most content with myself in Christ that I had ever been in my life. God had previously told me that the time had come for me to wait until the right man came along and that I should date whoever He brought to me. I felt like myself again after a devastating break up and a very scary diagnosis just a year ago. I was confident that I was where I needed to be and I was confident in who I am as a person... So remember how Andrew was the last person to class that first day of classes? This time, it was me. We were in Media Technology and there was one seat left in the front by the two guys I did that video project with last semester. 

Wanting a little familiarity in a class I knew was not going to be my favorite, I sat down next to Andrew Scott Bradford. That cute guy that caught my attention but never seriously thought about that whole first semester. I had given him a ride back to his dorm once in the rain and he asked for my phone number... but we had never truly connected. Well, finally being my true self again, I start to crack jokes in class and the craziest thing happened... Andrew thought I was funny. He laughed so hard at my jokes and I remember thinking, "Wow, this guy thinks I'm funny and I'm just being me! Maybe we can be friends. Plus, he's really cute. Maybe? No... don't get your hopes up. Just be friends."

A great friendship began to develop after that day in Media Technology. I learned that he was from Africa and his parents were missionaries there. I was so intrigued because I have loved and had a heart for Africa ever since I was a teenager. I started to ask him questions, seriously interested in all that he had to say and apparently it struck a chord with him because he sent me a text on February 16 (yes I still have it saved in my phone) that said, "Hey, thanks for just talking with me. I miss just being able to do that here in the states." Later he had explained that he didn't really like letting people know he was from africa because it didn't seemed like they really cared and they always treated him differently afterward. He told me that he was sick of people asking how he was but them not really wanting to know. He told me that he was thankful how sincere I was. And I was sincere. I was sincerely falling hard for this man. The more I learned about his passionate love for God, his amazing life in Africa, his compassionate heart, and great sense of humor... I began to develop serious feelings for him. 

I had remember him telling me that he would never date anyone until he was best friends with them and that he did not believe in dating someone that you could not see yourself marrying. Dating was serious for him and I could not agree more. After having my heart broken, I did not want to date anyone unless we both could see a future together very seriously. So I set out on a mission to become Andrew's best friend, because I could totally see a future with him. Everything just seemed to match up. We both want the same type of future, we make each other laugh, we get along great, and we have the same values in life. I never pursued anything romantic with him, but I spent so much time just talking to him about his life and my life and getting to know him as a person. We were both so open with each other from the beginning about our lives. There was never small talk between Andrew and I. 

I could tell more and more as the days got on that he was attracted to me by the way he would flirt with me very subtly. He would always put his hand right next to mine so that the backs of our hands were always touching when we would watch videos or movies together. When he found out how ticklish I was, he always found opportunities to tickle me until I cried. He always walked me back to my dorm at night and gave me a hug. He told me that he had never opened up to anyone from the states about Africa as much as he had to me. I went to one of his frisbee games and he and his dad invited me to have dinner with them. He would go to BSU with me and we would sit in the back together and I loved watching him worship. And then... one day he walked me to class, hugged me, and then texted me that he would miss me over the weekend because he was leaving for a frisbee tournament. It was my birthday weekend and my parents and best friends were coming up. 

By then, he was definitely one of my best friends and we were both sad that he could not meet my parents or Caroline and Melanie. He gave me a birthday letter before he left and said that he hoped this birthday would be great, possibly the best yet. I had no idea what that meant, but I knew it meant something. That weekend, my best friends and I skyped with him and his team. He texted me quite a few times and told me how he wanted to see me on my birthday, that Sunday evening when he got back to school. I went to meet him in Mass Comm. and showed him pictures from the weekend. We hung out for awhile and then he walked me back to my dorm. This time, though, he put his arm around me near the creepy, praying Jesus statue on campus because he knew I always got scared by it at night. We laughed about my irrational fear of a statue and then we stood by the entrance to my dorm. Even though I had known that he possibly had feelings for me and was at the very least attracted to me... I still wasn't sure it would work out because it hadn't worked out with anyone for so long. 

He gave me a very long hug as we stood there in the cold on February 26, 2012. I only slightly remember what happened next. I remember him saying that he liked me, that he wanted to talk to my dad about dating me, that he had never felt this way about anyone before... and for me, my whole world froze. My head was screaming a thousand different thoughts at me like "You know this means he can see himself marrying you, right?" and "Wait! He wants to talk to your dad??" and "Why don't you just tell him that you like him too already!?" Well finally, I told him. According to him I jumped up and down after that and said a bunch of random things that he barely remembers either. All I remember is walking down the stairs to my door and shaking so bad from shock that I couldn't even get my ID card in the slot. I fumbled around for my phone and called my friend Alex to come and talk to me because I could NOT think straight for the life of me. Alex and her boyfriend Maliek were standing there moments later and I told them that Andrew had said he liked me. They both started to scream and then Alex and I stayed up until about 4am that morning talking through everything.

We mainly read though. You see, ever since I was in the 8th grade I have been writing letters to my future husband praying for him and telling him different things about my life. I wanted to make sure that if I did end up dating Andrew that I could see these letters being written to him, so Alex and I read through them all and I swear it was like they were written specifically for Andrew. I signed most of them "Kimberly" which is what he calls me when everyone else calls me Kimmy. I wrote a poem about how it felt like there were seas between us when there really were at the time seeing as that he was in Africa and I was in Georgia. There were so many other "coincidences" that I knew things were different with this guy. We didn't talk about anything until the next night when he said he definitely wanted to talk with my dad, but he didn't want to rush into a relationship because we both had a lot of praying to do.

The next month was a beautiful time of us getting to know each other better, him meeting my parents and asking my dad's permission to date me with the intention of marriage, and us making sure that we were truly following God's plan. We fasted together, we prayed together, we had bible study together... and then on March 22nd, Andrew led me on a letter scavenger hunt that landed us at this lake near campus to ask me to be his "lady friend" (the term he came up with because he believes that many guys view girlfriends as arm candy and he viewed me as his potential wife... sweet, right?) We grew so close emotionally as friends and as a romantic couple so fast, but it didn't seem that way. I suddenly felt like I had known Andrew my entire life and after a few weeks he knew me better then anyone ever had before, including my parents. He has been so acceptive of my past and so loving in every situation. I have helped him through times of insecurities and he has helped me to complete my healing process from years of brokenness. 

God told him that I was the one after he walked me to my dorm about a week after we started dating. He prayed for confirmation and he received it many different times and on many different occasions. On Easter weekend, we were driving back to school from my house and a conversation of my past came up. I went through how my break up with Chris basically pushed me to leave Georgia and start over. I told him how each guy that had pursued me had helped me shape my standards and decide to truly wait on God's timing and grow closer to Jesus during that time of singleness. It finally just clicked in my head that God had used all of those circumstances in my life to bring me to Andrew and he recounted his story and how it led up to me. God revealed to me then and confirmed again for Andrew that God has plans for us to be together for the rest of our lives. It was then and there in that car ride that I knew he was the man I had written to in my letters, the face to the man in my dreams, and the friend and close companion I had always prayed for. After that tear-filled conversation, God played the most perfect song on my iPod that just sealed the deal for the both of us.

God has been growing us closer to Him and to each other ever since then. I can honestly say that I love Andrew more than I love anyone else on this earth. He has become home to me and my very best friend. Ours is a story that has been divinely crafted by the God almighty who is not too busy to not care about romance. We serve a very romantic God who loves a good love story. Even though ours is not a story that most people are comfortable with, I am so thankful for the fact that God sees me as someone with enough faith to trust Him with a crazy story like the one Andrew and I have. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has been in every step I've taken with Andrew. I know that this was His plan and we are in the center of it.

The reason I put this bible story on this blog (remember that passage from WAY up there ^) is because many people just want to criticize and pick apart every little detail in the reasoning behind why Andrew and I are choosing to not wait very long to get married. Just like those Pharisees questioned the crazy way that God works, many people question Andrew and I. To most of those questions I, like the blind man, can only say I do not know, but what I do know is that once I was blind and now I can see. I was blind to the fact that God cares about my love life. I was blind that He could actually care enough to perform love story miracles. But now, I can see... and I have to admit that the view is absolutely breathtaking. 

I understand that some might want to puke at the gushiness of this blog and that some still might doubt... but what has changed in the past couple of months is that I am no longer questioning myself and my choices because of other people's doubts. I now embrace God's leading and His timing and cannot wait to see this love story of ours unfold. I don't know when and I don't know how, but I know that sometime in the near future, with God's leading, that Andrew will ask me to be his wife and I will most certainly say yes. 

To quote this beautiful song, "I wouldn't change a thing."