I've done a few posts on Instagram recently reminiscing on Luke and my love story. It was all unfolding this time last year. Thanks to some followers I was made aware that I never really shared our story. Strolling back down memory lane -- sorting through hard-drive files from a year back -- I found some gems and, both to share the glory story and to document it for my own memory's sake, here's a concise compilation, along with the captions from my Instagram posts looking back on our story this year.

Christmas Eve 2015

About a year ago this time Luke was just getting into Athens with his YWAM team. On Christmas Eve he'd told me his heart to pursue me and I'd turned him down. I knew he was going overseas but didn't know where or for how long. I wouldn't have talked to him again after turning him down but after he had left and I asked a friend if she knew how it was going she simply asked me to really consider him. I didn't have any reason not to like him but it wasn't until after she'd shared with me how compatible we were that my eyes were opened and my heart changed. I chose not to be embarrassed and I reached out to Luke, two weeks after turning him down, and I didn't explain anything I just said I was praying for him and his team and the people they were meeting and would he give me names of people they were meeting so I could pray by name. That was the true start of "us", though we never talked about interest in each other again, and the rest really is history.

Kelsey and Luke's text feed

// from Instagram, February 2nd // A year ago this week, after a month of texting about Papa God and ministry and verses and such, Luke called me on video chat for the first time and we talked until he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore (he was seven hours ahead of me and it was evening in my time zone). The next morning I woke up to YouTube videos from him. This was one of them. One song he sent to me resonated so deeply that I memorized it and recorded a voice memo of harmonies over top of it which I sent to him. Something I would never do and wasn't trying to put myself out there by doing, I just wanted to worship with him. The morning he woke to that recording he walked to church in the Czech Republic listening to it and weeping. He says that's when he knew for certain there was no going back and he would marry me. I had no idea. He continued to call me on video chat every day whenever he had a moment or a few hours. We never scheduled or planned them but they always seemed to work out.

Luke had been praying about whether or not to continue talking with me after the team left Greece and went to the Czech Republic. I didn't know this. I had been praying that it would be clear to me whether he was going to pursue me while he was overseas or wait until he got home -- I didnt know how long that would be, I never asked. My "test" was that if he initiated wanting to video chat while he was on the outreach trip that I would take that as a sign from God that Luke would pursue me while he was still gone. Luke didn't know I was praying this. When he asked me to video chat he felt he was taking a great leap of faith.

// from Instagram, February 9th //February has me all sentimental. Every day of this month last year was significant. At the start Luke called me on video chat and sent me videos of his songs. He called every day -- one of which he told me he loved me, another he told me he was planning to move to Milwaukee to pursue me when he got back from his trip with YWAM, and, because I was so receptive to that, the NEXT DAY he told me he planned to marry me within six months. That night was the Super Bowl. We literally picked a date that night and he told me his whole story and I told him mine. Then I stayed up and planned the whole wedding.

The rest of the week he called my parents to ask their blessing, I drove back to Eau Claire to meet his family, and we worked on calling all the other key people in our lives to tell them the news and invite them. Feb 11th last year Omar surprised our cGROUP with the news that I was getting married. Cornerstone people turned up and poured out -- as did my sisters in law -- to help with anything and everything. February 20th Luke and I chose to take a week of silence and the next time we spoke was when I ran into his arms at the Chicago airport on February 27th when he and the YWAM team landed. That was the fifth time we'd ever been in person with each other. The next day we attended our wedding shower in Eau Claire together. Valentines was sweet but nothing special compared with any other day of February. It was all full of pursuit, falling in love, wedding details and faith-filled celebration.