Meet Alexa and Kevin.  Alexa was one of my first friends in LA, though when we met, we were two completely different people than we are today.

It has been said that friendship is discovered over a shared journey.  That shared journey for us has been the pursuit of Christ through every season.  Despite the ways we have grown and changed, our friendship has only deepened.  I solely attribute this to the fact that our friendship was weaved together by a divine love that does not waver with circumstance.  She gets me.  She knows me.  She has seen me at my worst and loves me anyway.  Alexa is a true and constant friend.

Enter Kevin.  We all met Kev through our community group at Reality LA.  Kev has quickly become one of Tyler’s dearest friends too.  Together, Kev and Alexa have loved my husband and me better than they even could apart.  They treat us to late night milkshakes, watch our silly dog while we are away, help us move our gigantic couch across town, rejoice with us, mourn with us, encourage us, pray for us, Yahtzee with us, and are always, always, available to us.

We went out to Manhattan Beach to take their engagement pictures, a place dear to their hearts.  Kev explained to me the significance:

Every time I have had to make a major life decision, I have spent time at the 8th Street life guard tower in the dead of night.  This first began at the end of high school when thinking about college and has extended through when I knew I wanted to ask Alexa to be my wife.  It has been really neat to see how this has transitioned from a time of thought and reflection to something much deeper: prayer.  God is faithful to us and delights in us having a relationship with Him.  Psalm 145:18 says, “The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth.”  The lifeguard tower has become less of a place to mull my own thoughts and instead a place that the Lord meets me and provides conviction, encouragement, and peace.

Above all else, the one thing we desire our relationship, engagement, and our future marriage to point directly to is the grace, mercy and steadfast love of Jesus.  1 Timothy 1:5 tells us, “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”  Though we are both imperfect people who don’t have pure hearts, good consciences or even a sincere faith on our own, Jesus graciously died not only to take away the punishment of failure and sin that we deserve, but also to give us new life.  With that, He has given us (and anyone else who trusts in Him) new hearts, filled with His Holy Spirit!  We pray that when someone sees the love between us, they see not only the love that two people have for one another, but instead, a small picture of the love God has for us.