This is by for one of my favorite Glory Story. I’ll share the short version for blogging sake…

We met on a warm summer Sunday evening at the 4pm mass. I walked into church and noticed him standing in the back with a big red beard and pacing back an forth. At the moment I didn’t think much of it as I headed to my seat, I assumed he was Fr. Mike’s brother since they look so much a like. About half way through mass I had an awkward feeling that someone was staring at me from behind, it was so strong that I could not help but turn around, something I hardly ever do at mass. And sure enough there was Brandon looking right back at me. He was still standing all the way in the back not sitting down. Obviously, I quickly turned around and tried to bring my focus back to the mass. At the closing of mass before Fr. Mike said the final prayer he brought Brandon up and introduced him as the new youth minister for our church.

Turns out that Brandon was looking for people to volunteer and work with the teens in the new youth program. And it just so happens that earlier that month I was inquiring about when we were going to start up our teen ministry again at the parish. When I was in high school  we had a strong teem of volunteers for our youth group and at that age I always said to myself I wanted to be just like them.

So at the end of mass I signed up to volunteer. At the time I was also in the process of changing jobs and relocating, which caused Brandon to have to call me for two months before I could actually start helping. I remember telling my family that the church was calling non stop for me to volunteer (I could not remember Brandon’s name at the time), jokingly I said “God must have big plans for me there.” Little did I know those plans would lead to marriage.

Finally two months later jumped on the Core Team meeting, Core Team was the name given to the group of volunteers who were helping out. My boyfriend, however, at the time was not a huge fan of me spending more time at the church, he had a thing against the church. To make a long story short he said I had to choose between him and church. Obviously I chose the church & God.  Also during this time I met Brandon’s girlfriend who he was going to propose to, he already had the ring designed and in hand, I was so excited for the both of them. A few weeks before he was about to propose I had a dream that Brandon broke up with his girlfriend, I was literally outraged. It was one of those dreams when you wake up mad at the person and don’t want to talk to them in real life. I attended the Core meeting that evening and began to tell another core member about my dream before Brandon showed up for the meeting. We both laughed it off as just a bad dream.

Heres the crazy thing, are you ready for this, the dream came true! 

Brandon walked into the meeting and the firs thing he discussed was him and his girlfriend (who was going to help lead the group) had broken up and she was moving back home. Turns out that she had eyes for someone else so they mutually decided to break up. I was floored, my friend reached out to pinch me and said, “it’s not a dream.”  That was one of the biggest God moments of my life to date.

There we both were, single + free. I personally loved being single, I was the type of girl who loved being with my friends every min of the day and most of the time dating got in the way of that.  I always thought single life was fabulous and I thoroughly enjoyed every min of it. Brandon too was enjoying the single life, after all he had just gotten out of a 3 year long distance relationship. We became friends and since Brandon was new to the area I introduced him to all my friends, who brought him in like family. Our friendship quickly grew over a few months time. I began to noticed that most everything we did… was together. For the first time, spending time with someone did not seem like time spent away from my friends. I truly felt like I was hanging out with my best friend.

Then one day after a concert by the ocean Brandon asked me if we could date, but the most beautiful thing was he said he wanted to be chase. He was willing to wait for me. With a heart filled with abounding joy I said yes. After a year of dating Brandon proposed. It’s been almost 7 years since we walked down the aisle and said “I Do“. Today I could not imagine a single day without him. God truly did have big plans for me. God plans have always been bigger then my wildest dreams.