lets be honest....

i suck at this blog challenges. i have done a handful of love stories for ya'll with so many more to share! i'm sorry!

 

let's get you started on a good story for this weekend!

 

it comes from two of mine + trav's dearest friends. we just spent all week with them. they are the type of couple you leave saying, they excude the Father's love + you just desire to be with them more.

 

it was so fun to see their love evolve. they started dating/got engaged/ got married around the same times we did. it was a blast to have a couple friend to share in that with!

 

meet the lessler's. alex + fallon. here's their love story:

My love story is one about unexpected love. 

 

After graduating college, I moved back home to Portland, Oregon.

 

It wasn’t a move that I wanted to make. Moving home, having a degree but no career, and leaving behind all my close friends, was hard.

 

I moved back with no expectations of dating, let alone finding my husband. But I also had made a little promise to myself that I would kindly accept any invitation to join someone on a date.

 

Looking back, I can see that God was slowly and quietly preparing my heart for what was about to happen.

 

I remember one night I was at dinner with a friend and I told her I believed God was preparing my heart for something unexpected and wonderful.

 

Twenty some days later, I met Alexander for the first time. He was tall, dark, and handsome. He was soft spoken, had a calm presence, and was very quiet. I chalked all that up as being boring. Dreadfully boring, or at least that was my first impression. It wasn’t love at first sight, at all. 

A week and a half later, I got invited to spend the weekend at Lincoln City with some friends. I didn’t want to go because I knew Alexander was invited, too. Since our initial meeting, many people were behind us dating. I knew the beach was part of their plan, and I was so nervous thinking about spending an awkward weekend at the beach with a handsome guy that I wasn’t interested in. Yet, I somehow got talked into going… 

I spent the weekend observing Alexander. Fascinated by who he was and how he interacted with others.

We had little interaction after the beach. I’d see him around church serving and loving on people. But I made no effort to talk to him. Still admiring from afar.

But something Inside of me started to change.

I wanted to be noticed. I had always thought Alexander was so handsome but I was always so drawn to how I loved watching him interact with others, especially when it came to the way he showed love to every person he came into contact with.

But I had no reason to believe he noticed me. I was always kind and warm in our few interactions and maybe sometimes, secretly looked for a detour to walk past him. But I was conflicted. Did he notice me? How do I let him know that I like him?

To my surprise, he had noticed me. He called me on Wednesday, May 19^th, 2010 and asked if I wanted to go on a date that Saturday.

Our first date May 22^nd: we talked over Crepes, walked around Portland, picked out books at Powell’s, and had Mexican Food for dinner. Our date started at 1 p.m. and ended at 11 p.m.

 

It was the best date I had ever been on. I knew after that date that I was going to marry Alexander. The only problem, he didn’t.

 

The next couple of months were some of the longest and most life shaping months of my life. I’m not a patient person. In fact, I’m a total perfectionist, who always has a plan and seems to know how things should look.

 

Had God forgotten that he had released my heart months before to dating a guy? I clearly thought this guy was Alexander. Was he not? Was I dating the wrong guy?

 

Thoughts and questions, like those, bombard my mind. I didn’t trust God.

 

It was as if I had made a plan and timeline, scanned a copy, and sent it off to God…expecting he’d forward it on to Alexander to make sure it happened.

 

The beauty of dating a man that trusts and follows God is that they had a plan. Just not the same plan. A little over six months from the day I went on that first date, with a tall, dark, and handsome guy, He got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife.

 

And on May 7^th, 2011 I became his wife.

 

My love story is better than any love story, I could have imaged or dreamt for myself. And after 2 and a half years of marriage, it keeps getting better and better.