Our Story

For those that know us and know our full story, know that although Andrew and I met in July 2011, our real story began much earlier. They know that God's hand was evident long before - in those days, months, and years leading up to the summer of 2011. He was there in the midst of the struggles, joy, tears, laughter, & heartache that prepared us and made us into the man and woman that we were on that beautiful day in early July. You see, Andrew and I believe that we didn't meet by chance or by being at the right place at the right time - we met on a day ordained by God according to His Sovreign plan. We met after many prayers and heart cries out to the One who created us and who makes all things beautiful in time. This was how our real story began.

I began Occupational Therapy school in Jackson, MS in May 2009. After almost two years of coursework, I - along with the rest of my classmates - was ready for my first long awaited clinical rotation. Deciding clinical placements for 32 students is no simple task, but our professors put in tireless effort to ensure that the best matches are made. As students, we pick our top five sites from a lengthy list and then leave it in the hands of our trusted professors. As with any decision in life, I spent countless hours in prayer and worry that I would choose and receive the site that was best for me. At the time I was most worried about my clinical setting, supervisor and caseload, but sensed something of greater importance weighing on this decision. I did not know at the time that my future home, workplace, husband, and church were represented on that list. For days I went back and forth between a site in Arkansas and one in Louisiana for my top pick. After searching the websites for the clinics in each state - and despite my family's objections that I knew absolutely no one in Louisiana - I moved the clinic in LA to the number one place on my list and turned it over to my trusted professors - it was no longer in my hands.

On Valentines Day 2011 I found out that I would be going to the clinic in Louisiana that I had chosen as my top pick. About three months later my parents were helping me move into a 1-bedroom apartment in an unfamiliar town. I had made up my mind to get involved in a local church - I just had not planned on it being NMBC, a thirty minute drive from my apartment. This came through an invitation from friends I was blessed to meet through my clinical site, which no doubt was the perfect fit for me. I attended a singles Sunday School class where, ironically, the topic of study that first Sunday was marriage. We drew names for "prayer partners" at the beginning of class each week which was great for encouraging prayer but also for meeting your future spouse, as it would turn out. On June 26, 2011, I drew "Andrew Young" as my prayer partner for the week and taking my role as his prayer partner seriously, I messaged him Monday morning on Facebook to genuinely ask how I could pray for him. He took it a little less seriously I think and told me to pray his week would go by fast because he was leaving for the beach at the end of the week. Nevertheless, this started a conversation that led to us realizing we worked in buildings only a few hundred feet from each other and him inviting me to lunch upon his return from the beach.

What I considered a friendly lunch date between "prayer partners" turned into much more time spent together over the final course of my clinical rotation. He was the perfect gentleman - we were  official on July 22nd and had our first kiss the following Sunday. We said "I love you" on July 31st and never had those words had so much meaning as they did on that day. I knew then that this was the forever kind of love that our parents had modeled for both of us throughout our lives. It was the same love that held us together through my return to Jackson to finish my coursework and then back home to NE Mississippi for my final clinical rotation. And it was the love that remained with us on those long commutes to spend a little time together before saying yet another goodbye. It was the love that I had prayed for and that God had planned for me long before I even knew who Andrew was.

If you had told me on Valentines Day 2011, when I received a slip of paper telling me that I was moving  to Louisiana, that on the following Valentines 2012, I would be standing in front of a boy on his knees asking me to marry him, I never would have believed you. But that's the way our story unfolded - and I couldn't have written it any better myself.


Originally posted on our wedsite, lauraandandrew.wedsite.com, in July 2012