Category: 2023

2018 was a year of leaping growth and life-altering change. Early in the year, I sought out personal prayer ministry for the first time in my life. Around February, I had made great strides in moving on from my first relationship, but I felt stuck. There was some kind of snag in my growth and healing, such that I felt like I couldn’t fully emotionally move forward.
I remember sharing with a close friend about this struggle. She suggested that I might have some unbroken “soul ties” with my ex-boyfriend.
Soul ties?
I’d never heard of those before.
In short, this conversation was the catalyst for my seeking personal prayer ministry. I met with an older, wiser, godly woman who walked me through a prayerful process of forgiveness, surrendering my past relationship, and breaking off any unhealthy connections of the soul and spirit that had been formed with my previous boyfriend. That evening of prayer was a turning point in my journey. The “snag”, the feeling of running up against a wall in my healing journey, was removed. My heart was able to mend more completely after that than it had before.

By late spring/early summer, I was beginning to enjoy being single again. I was trying not to entertain situations with guys that could potentially be a distraction, a fling, or just a selfish opportunity to feel affirmed and desired.
But then, there was Scott Lasuik. Unassuming, relaxed, friendly, his presence gradually became more prominent in my consciousness. Being a volunteer in his area of ministry frequently threw us into the same circles at church, and we had a number of mutual friends. Over a period of a few months, I got acquainted with this fun-loving, musically talented worship leader, who just so happened to be single.

One weekend — I believe it was a Sunday afternoon — I joined a group of young adults from church at a local park for an afternoon BBQ. Scott was also among this group. Being vehicle-less at the time, I had hitched a ride with a couple of friends. When the group began to disband, my need for a ride was met by an offer from Scott to take me home. On our way to the house where I was renting a basement suite at the time, we decided to stop and get ice cream. Conveniently, my landlords weren’t home that day, so we took advantage of the backyard and sat on the deck. We ate ice cream and discussed a recent worship song that was getting some controversial attention in Christian circles. I enjoyed the fact that I could discuss music and theology with this guy.

Sometime later, we planned to hang out on a Sunday after church. (Isn’t this the most stereotypical church-y couple story you’ve ever heard?) On July 21st, the day before our planned date (though we didn’t call it that at the time), I wrote the following:

And as I look ahead to tomorrow, I am curious and excited. I’m hanging out with Scott tomorrow afternoon, and I have no idea what the outcome of that will be[…] But God weaves threads into my life, and He knows that He will pull and push and pin those threads in particular ways to accomplish His purposes. And I don’t know how hanging out with Scott fits into that… I may discover that I really enjoy spending time with him, or that I don’t. And there is his side of the equation to be figured as well. But I am hoping, trusting, anticipating that somehow our Sunday hang-out and the almost non-stop texting of the past week will somehow fit into the thread God is weaving in my life.

The following afternoon, we enjoyed a low-key lunch together and went out for a mediocre dessert. I remember fretting over whether or not I would enjoy spending an afternoon with Scott, and concluding that I would suggest we go see a movie. That way, if it turned out to be awful or very awkward, at least we could do something that didn’t require us to carry a conversation.
It turns out (you guessed it) that it wasn’t a horrible afternoon — though there were a couple of awkward pause moments in our conversations — but we decided to go see The Incredibles 2 anyway. When Scott dropped me off at home later that day, he said: “We should do this again sometime.”

“I would like that,” I replied.

Surprise me, Jesus! I want to wonder at what You do, and be in awe of You and Your plans for my life. I know You can astonish the socks off of me; so I am expectant for it. I wait for You. I trust You. I trust Your love and Your goodness. I trust Your wisdom.

February 25, 2018, my journal

Eight months prior to this journal entry, my first boyfriend had broken up with me. In 2017 I had met a guy who checked every box on my list. What exactly those boxes were is irrelevant; what’s interesting to note is that he was basically a slightly older, male version of me. He had a lot of the traits that I liked about myself. Vanity on full display, am I right? Well, it turns out that being with someone just like me wasn’t the best situation. Our relationship was fast-paced and only lasted two months. One of those two months was long distance. We were talking marriage and future from the get-go — which, bear in mind, isn’t always a bad thing — and I got emotionally invested really fast. One afternoon in June, just before I got on a plane to attend a family wedding, he called me and broke up with me. Objectively speaking, it shouldn’t have been a big deal; after all, we only dated for two months. But to 21-year-old me — full of romanticized ideals about dating and marriage, and really thinking this was “the one” — the breakup was shattering. I had long held the dream of dating one man and marrying him, and that breakup made my head spin.

Prior to my first boyfriend, my concept of dating was largely informed by the 90’s and early 2000’s “purity culture”. Currently a lot of people on the internet seem to be giving purity culture a bad reputation. While it had its downfalls, I want to go on record for saying that there was a lot of good, godly, Biblical wisdom to be found in some of the literature and principles that came out of that movement. The fact that there seems to be a reaction against it in Christian circles today is actually concerning. But that’s for another blog post.
I was the teenager that devoured Christian dating books. Being a perfectionist by nature, and someone who is prone to err on the side of legalism, I built a framework around dating that was mostly comprised of legalistic, unrealistic expectations. I heard someone describe purity culture as another type of prosperity gospel that says, “If you date this way, and follow these rules, then you’ll never have your heart broken and your marriage is going to be a perfect happily-ever-after.” This pretty much sums up what I believed going into my first relationship.

It shocked me to discover that no matter how “good” you date, you can still wind up with a broken heart. The months preceding the journal entry above were full of honest, hard, thorough processing; praying, crying out to God, asking questions, heart-searching, becoming disillusioned with my own ideals, preaching to myself, giving God my expectations and asking Him to give me new ones. God did a lot of “heart surgery” on me in those months. He gave me compassion for others who go through painful breakups where there had previously been pride and judgement. He gave me humility where I had previously been arrogant. He showed me lies that I had believed about relationships, and He started to reconstruct my views according to the truth. He brought me into a vibrant community of believers in a church that I still call my home. He liberated me to discover more of who He created me to be, instead of trying to become what someone else wanted me to be. He showed me the shallowness and vanity of some of my expectations of a future husband. Ever so graciously, gently, patiently, God pried my fingers open around my ideals and opened my hands to receive what He had in store.

You may be wondering what this has to do with my love story. And the answer is, a lot. God used my first relationship to show me that a male version of me was not what I needed. He began to open me up to the idea that what was best for me might be very different from me and my ideals. If I had never dated (and broken up with) my “perfect guy”, I would never have seen how faulty my ideals were. I needed to become disillusioned with my fantasy in order to be open to God’s better reality.

On September 23, 2017, I attended a friend’s wedding. It was just three months after my breakup, and I was nowhere near ready for another date. But seated at my table, along with a bunch of other single, eligible individuals (funny how that happens at weddings), was a guy named Scott who was on staff at a local church. He was a musician, I was a musician, and that was enough in common for us to have some pleasant conversation. But by the end of the night I had forgotten about him, and he didn’t cross my mind again for some time.

Fast forward to November, and I found myself attending Heartland Alliance Church. God made it abundantly clear to me that He wanted me there, so I jumped in with both feet. By the end of the year, I had started volunteering in the worship arts ministry. I was still processing a lot of stuff with God. He was working on my heart, healing wounds, and restoring my hope in His plan for me. I was loving being involved in church, putting my musical skillset to good use in the worship arts ministry, and working hard at getting my teaching degree.
And at the start of 2018, I was unaware of the smile on God’s face and the pattern of His fingerprints in my life as I regularly began crossing paths with that worship leader, Scott.

It surprised me to open my blog and see that I haven’t published a post in nearly two years. I suppose there is a lot that I could catch up on — getting pregnant, the “end” of the pandemic, having our first baby, getting ready to move in a few weeks etc. Perhaps I’ll devote some time to the baby part down the road.

For now, it has been on my mind of late to share my husband’s and my love story. I have a few reasons for wanting to do this.
Firstly, I want to have it documented in a more narrative style. I intend to sift through some old journal entries to bring more clarity and accuracy to this version of our story. I cannot guarantee that I won’t embellish it here and there, just a little…but I will do my best to be truthful.
Secondly, I think it is a good practice for married people to reflect on the why’s and the how’s of their love. It reminds me of the reasons why I fell in love with and chose to marry my husband. It also gives me an opportunity to reflect on and trace the hand of God in our lives up until now.
Thirdly, I hope it might offer encouragement and edification to my readership (hi Mama!). As someone who grew up a consumer of Christian dating books and idealizing around the principles of the 90’s “purity culture”, I think there are some people who perhaps had/have similar ideals to mine that might find hope and encouragement in my story.
And finally, my husband encouraged me today that I should keep writing. Thanks for cheering me on, babe.

I do not have an outline of how many posts I will write or how often I will be posting. But I intend to pick up the metaphorical pen of my blog once more and share our story with you over the coming months.
If you want to come along for the read (see what I did there?), please bear with me as we will be moving in a few weeks, immediately followed by a trip out of town to visit some family. I’m also in the delightful and demanding throes of having an 8-month old baby; so, by the time he’s in bed and my day’s tasks are sufficiently completed, it’s usually almost my bed time. Or at least, the time at which I should be going to bed. In other words, I don’t get around to writing as much as I would like these days.

I hope our story will not only encourage you, but also make you laugh, ponder, and seek the Lord.

I will remember the deeds of the LORD;
yes, I will remember Your wonders of old.
I will ponder all Your work,
and meditate on Your mighty deeds.

Psalm 77:11-12, ESV