When I feel most alive … go ahead, take your shoes off!

This very beautiful lady is my girlfriend, as of June 23rd, Liz Laslie. I can\’t believe that she is my girlfriend! It\’s so exciting and almost unreal! We have an incredible story! I\’m going to tell you just a little bit of it now:

We met in the summer of 2000, when I was on summer project in Virginia Beach with Campus Crusade. Some of my project friends and I were out playing volleyball on the beach one sunny day when a cute girl in a pink two-piece approached us and asked if she could join our game. We agreed heartily and quickly found out that her name was Liz and that she was going to be a freshman that fall at Virginia Tech (where I just happened to go to school!) As we played, she heard the music that we were playing on our CD player nearby (a Sonicflood CD) and commented that she had the same CD and asked if we were Christians. We told her all about summer project and I invited her to check out Crusade at Tech that fall and promised to invite her the first week of school. I got her email address to avoid losing touch, and we emailed a few times that summer. She actually came back to VB a few times that summer and we hung out a bit. We were fast friends. But that was just the beginning…

When I got back to school in the fall for my sophomore year, I, of course, re-connected with Liz and she came to all sorts of Crusade events that first week (her first week at Tech as a freshman) and we were becoming good friends. I could tell that this was a girl I could really get along with and enjoyed her friendship so much that it was hard to stay away. I had a few other friends who lived in the same dorm as her, so I would frequently stop by her room to hang out and talk.

That was the beginning of a friendship that would grow and teach me incredible things. I have told many people that it was through my friendship with Liz that I learned how to really be just friends with women and to treat them with kindness and respect. Through my 3 years friendship with Liz in college, I learned for the first time, how powerful and man\’s words of affirmation can be in speaking life into women\’s hearts, and the important role that men (especially single men) have to play in encouraging the women in our lives and making them feel valued and appreciated. Because, at this point, I had no romantic feelings for Liz (not \’til later!) I was freed to simply and genuinely be her friend and care about her without the distractions and confusions of romance. These were valuable times that I will cherish for the rest of my life, and wouldn\’t trade for anything.