For quite a few months now I’ve wanted to tell you all a story.

But I couldn’t, because it wasn’t my story to tell (though it affected me greatly).

But now the story has been told. And so I will share it with you all!

That’s right; my baby is getting married!

She and David actually got engaged back in July, but he took her completely by surprise that day. And she hadn’t really “introduced” David much on her YouTube channel, so she didn’t want to go public with the engagement until people had seen him a little bit more, or else it may seem strange. (Such is the world when your ministry is online).

So I couldn’t share it with you! I did hint that last week I was off somewhere doing something important, and so I ran a quick post. What I didn’t tell you was that we all went wedding dress shopping (and got a fabulous dress!)

The wedding is in February, almost a year to the day that they started dating.

Let me tell you a little bit about David and Katie. David is Rebecca’s age; he and Rebecca have been friends since junior high. David has always known who Katie was, of course, but she was off limits because she was “Becca’s little sister”. David was a big part of everything Rebecca went through as a teen. When a guy broke her heart, David volunteered to punch him for her (she politely declined). Rebecca’s diaries are full of David, and when Katie and David started dating, she looked back and read them and said, “Even back then I was talking about him as my brother! I’m just so glad I never had a crush on him!”

David and Rebecca both drifted away from their youth group circle after high school, but they remained close to each other, and David was one of the few from her teenage years who was invited to her wedding. He actually gave the first speech when the open mic started, and talked about how Rebecca had always been his sister. So looking back, it’s really cool how he’s always been there.

For Katie, he was far more there when she was about 11-15. She had the hugest crush on him (though she never really told me much at the time). After that she moved on, and David kind of went off the rails a bit (he alludes to that at the end of the video). Katie would never be interested in someone who wasn’t totally sold out for Jesus, so when David did start to notice her, she said no.

He relentlessly pursued her anyway, at the same time as he was pursuing Jesus again, and he and Katie became quite good friends. He wanted it to be more; she kept turning him down. Until, 2 1/2 years after he’d started asking, she finally said yes.

That was last February. They were engaged in July.

Some would say it’s fast, but when they started dating they already knew each other so well. And I’m not a huge believer in long engagements, if you already know each other.

They’ve got some great pre-marital counselling, so I’m happy. David is a medic in the military, and could easily be deployed at the end of 2018, so she has a huge adjustment to make. And she’s a little worried about it. But she can already see how God may be opening up doors for her for ministry there.

It’s interesting, because we hardly knew Connor, Rebecca’s husband, when they began dating because she had met him at school. With David, we know everything–including his family–really well. In some ways that’s good; in other ways it makes it much easier to interfere. In fact, a few years ago at church David used to call Keith and me “Mom” and “Dad”; Keith has been his mentor for a while and we’ve always kind of encouraged him. I pulled back a ton when Katie kept turning him down because I wanted him to get the message; but now we’re all good again.

David and Katie are very different. But they work together. So this will be a fun year as we gear up for her wedding! I’m not doing as many big speaking tours this year to get ready for it, and I’m really looking forward to a big family day.

My baby is getting married! Wow. And now I can tell you. 🙂