Most days I am here to bring the Word of God to life and help you love your Bible. Today is different. I am telling a story. Our story.

It is the story of how I met my fiancé, John.

How It Started: My perspective

We didn’t meet on a dating app. That was a hard line for me. I told the Lord that if He wanted me with someone, He would make it happen without me downloading another app. I was not going to try again.

In true God fashion, He found a loophole.

We met on Instagram.

The day before this all began, I told my best friend friend, “If I meet someone, cool. If not, fine.” I had been going back and forth between being lonely and being just fine on my own. Being a single mom for almost ten years and never seeing a healthy relationship modeled to me, I never thought I would want that. But I finally handed this desire to the Lord and left it there.

That day I went live for the first time on my KarleighWalkswithJesus Instagram. I wasn’t even going to, but I felt God telling me it was time nudge and hit the button. Somewhere in the middle of that live, a guy popped into the comments and asked, “How can I pray for you?”

Fighting not to roll my eyes, I struggled to hold it together. Plenty of guys had shown up in my inbox pretending to be spiritual and ended up sharing things that do not belong on Instagram. I wanted to answer without being rude, so I said, “School and sleep. I am struggling with both.”

He said, “Okay. Sleep and school.”

How It Started: John’s perspective

“I followed Karleigh after a reel and I remember thinking it was amazing and hitting follow. I was on a long coach ride home from band practice when I saw the notification that she was live. After turning it on, I felt the Holy Spirit say, ‘I want you to pray for her.’

“I typed, ‘How can I pray for you?’ She said school and sleep. I messaged after the live and said, ‘I’ll pray when I get home.’”

The audio notes that changed everything

When he said he would pray later, I thought it was the dumbest thing I had ever heard. Just pray now in your head, right? Fifteen or twenty minutes later my phone lit up with a string of Instagram audio notes.

I pressed play and was not ready for what came out of my speakers.

He prayed for me with detail he could not have known. The Holy Spirit gave him language that touched things I had barely told my best friend. Part of me felt seen. Part of me felt exposed. All of me was entirely annoyed with the Holy Spirit for telling this man so much of my life. But he had the cutest British accent I have ever heard so I kept listening.

That is how it started. We kept talking. My best friend called him “the boy” for the first week because I kept checking to see if he had messaged back. I didn’t want to admit I had feelings for him, so she would just ask me how “the boy” was instead of asking for his name.

John says, “We started talking and we have not stopped.” Accurate.

The IT Crowd connection

Early on we were sending audio notes back and forth. In the background of one of John’s notes I heard an elevator voice say, “Door closing.” It made me think of a line from the British sitcom The IT Crowd.

I asked, “Have you seen The IT Crowd?”

He answered, “Excuse me, I am British. Of course I have,” and then quoted a line right back.

For two days we spoke almost entirely in IT Crowd quotes. We still do. Eventually he asked if I wanted to watch an episode together on Zoom. I was nervous and almost canceled. Praise the Lord that I didn’t.

From then on we were on Zoom constantly. He is six hours ahead, so we usually started around 8:30 p.m. my time, which is 2:30 a.m. for him. We talked for six or seven hours at a time. No one slept.

“I need to talk to you”

About a week in he sent the text that shoots adrenaline through the veins of anyone with anxiety: “I need to talk to you.”

My brain did cartwheels. What did he find out?! Did I do something? What’s wrong?

What he wanted to say was simple. “I really like you.”

I waited for a “but.” It never came.

Our first date

About three weeks after we started talking, we met in person. He was visiting friends in Michigan, and I was in Missouri. By his definition, it was “convenient.” I had to drive over 4 hours to get him from the airport and he had to take a plane ride to get there and then a bus and train to get back. Yea, super convenient.

I drove to St. Louis to pick him up from the airport. I was exhausted, on my period, and I needed a bathroom immediately. There was also the fact that I was letting a man from the internet get into my car, which is not a sentence I ever planned to live out again after being a stupid teenager way too many times.

I pulled up to the curb, saw him, and thought, oh no, he regrets this. He says he was excited.

My Anxiety was Wild

We hugged. I told him he smelled good. A security guard came over and chatted him up like they were old friends. I was sure we were in trouble because of the airport speakers constantly blaring about how you could not park at the pickup place. He was just being friendly.

We decided on Mellow Mushroom for gluten free, vegan pizza. We got there before it opened and stood outside talking. At one point he touched my hair. I liked it and promptly took a step back because vulnerability is hard and my nervous system was in fight or flight.

When the doors opened we ordered. He asked for root beer with no ice. The server brought it full of ice. Instead of sending it back, this man put his whole hand in the glass, scooped the ice out, and plopped it into the water cup the waitress had brought a few minutes earlier. I sat there weighing my life choices.

We wandered around St. Louis the rest of the day. The sculpture park. Starbucks, where he finally kissed me and bought me coffee and I worked on a paper. Chipotle for dinner.

The moment that marked me most happened in the Chipotle parking lot. We were sitting in the car listening to music. I put my head on his shoulder and fell asleep, never having felt safe enough to do that before. Waking up over 15 minutes later, he was scrolling on his phone, patient and content.

Making it official

On the way to drop him at the train I finally asked, “So, what are we?”

Waiting for me to bring it up first, allowing me to set the pace, he smiled and said we were dating.

The podcast that needed a warning

Before we met in person, I sent him a link to a podcast I recorded on Elijah Fire where I walked through some of the hardest parts of my story. Childhood abuse. Divorce. Unhealthy relationships. I did not warn him about the content because I forgot how much I shared in that episode.

John says, “I listened on a coach and ended up in tears. Not because it scared me off, but because I could not believe anyone had treated you that way. It did not change how I felt. If anything, it made me respect you more for how God has brought you through it.”

Learning each other

Our relationship is real life, not a movie. I struggle to feel and express emotions. John is naturally romantic. Early on we made a simple system to help me regulate. If he said something tender and I could not respond, I sent a sandwich emoji. It meant I heard him and needed space to process. We didn’t need it for long, but it helped.

We also had to learn our communication rhythms. I sometimes assume silence means something is wrong. He is quiet by default. He also once texted “I need to talk to you” right before a crowd stopped him after his London walking tour, which left me spiraling for twenty minutes. We laugh about it now.

Why this works

From the beginning he has held space for me. He prays for me, tells the truth, lets me be honest about my story and never rushes me to be a different version of myself. I feel safe. That is new for me, and it is a gift from God.

John says, “I always knew this was God. Talking to you never felt forced. I could feel how I loved you before I had the words for it. Going at your pace was important, so I followed your lead. I still do.”

That is how we met. From a Holy Spirit nudge in an Instagram live, to audio notes, to Zoom calls that ran until sunrise, to an airport curb in St. Louis, to a Chipotle parking lot where I drooled on his arm and slept like a baby.

God writes good stories. I am grateful I get to live this one.

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