erin's side of the story

A woman once gave me a marker and sketch pad and asked me to draw a representation of my relationship with Austin. On the right I drew a perfect square with a nice, smooth circle fitting nicely inside. One small, straight arrow went from the center of the circle towards the outside. That was me. On the left I drew a spasmatic amoeba with flailing appendages heading in all different directions. A multitude of arrows exited the amoeba shape with evident energy but heading in varying and at times contradictory directions. That…was Austin.

Mentally flipping back over the past two years brings a flood of memories, but three things stand out with striking clarity: that there are entirely more bumps in life than I ever imagined…that God has sovereign control over them all…and that sometimes amoebas need circlesquares in their life and circlesquares can use a little amoeba action.

Austin and I met in the fall of 2005 at the church in North Carolina where we will be married this fall. I had graduated from Wake Forest University that spring, moved to Argentina for the summer, and just returned to Winston-Salem to start a position as a director of a childhood health living program. My first Sunday back at the church where I’d worked with high school and college students for the previous four years, my friend Melanie told me I had to come meet this guy who she’d gone to college with who moved from Colorado to work in the college ministry. She walked me down to the basement and introduced me to this tattooed, messy hair guy sitting at a desk with those giant headphones on. We probably exchanged some forgotten formalities but I think my impression was a sort of “eeeh? (shoulder shrug)” and wishing they would have hired someone more my type or another female intern instead. But as the fall went on, our paths crossed with increasing frequency and I became slowly intrigued by this guy from a distance.

One night a group of us brought sleeping bags to watch a late night movie on a big screen. Within an hour of the movie’s end everyone had fallen asleep except Austin and me. It was the first time we had ever really talked and this was the point that my heart was moved. He was so passionate about worship, about art, about life…all in ways completely unique to anyone I had met. We stayed up talking until sunrise and the next day I had that nervousexcitedenergy…the kind that makes you sing outloud in your car to a song on repeat 82 times…uhh..or at least for people who like songs on repeat.

Austin asked me out a few weeks later and we began a year and a half relationship that would be filled with both incredible highs and major challenges. Our personalities, upbringings, and faith journeys were completely different from one another, but that was exactly what helped us each see and serve the world in better ways. We traveled together, did missions together, enjoyed art together, and were silly together. We also broke up twice, I cried a lot, and we were both struggling with a lot of issues on our own. But God is a transforming God who quite literally “redeemed our lives from the pit” and used each of us in the other’s life to get there. The last two years have been a refining process for each of us individually and together. Especially in the last six months, we grew. Austin grew in patience, grace, and tenderness. And I grew in vulnerability and fortitude. Despite everything that makes us different, I could not fathom myself with anyone else. With that said, I plan to wear a giant box down the aisle and Austin will be in an amoeba suit.