~Erik & Andrea’s Love Story~


Andrea’s Perspective:

It feels unreal, writing these words “Erik & Andrea’s Love Story”. Our story has been a whirlwind and yet lived in slow motion. Each step has been marked by God’s perfect faithfulness and lavish, ill-deserved grace upon us unworthy sinners. And I am grateful.

Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a wife and mommy. This story has been a long time in coming, or at least it seemed that way. Yet looking back now, I can see how God’s timing really was perfect. Years of singleness taught me dependence upon God and gave me a unique opportunity to seek first His kingdom.

The last couple of years were especially difficult and especially fulfilling. God continually opened up opportunities for ministry, I had a full and productive life I learned to love, and yet the longing to be married never quite went away. But it’s hard to hope. By the end of 2019, having walked through an experience that left me with dashed hopes and dreams, I was weary and so ready to be done hoping.

That last week of December, as I prayed over the coming year and sought God’s will, I sensed a theme of “hope” being given to me. But I didn’t want to hope. I wanted to throw myself fully into being single and stuffing away the hopes. I wanted to pursue further overseas ministry, perhaps in a long-term sense, and do everything that I’d been saving “for later, when I get married”.

But I knew God wanted me to hope, to open my heart and open my hands to whatever His will for me was. The last words I penned in 2019 were: “I give You 2020. I give You my every hope. I ask that You fulfill whatever will bring You the most glory. I pray that at the end of 2020, above all else, that I will be grateful for Christ in me, the hope of glory. May my hope be firmly grounded in Your faithfulness.”

And so, while I doubted that marriage was something I could hope for, I did what I never wanted to do. I made a profile on Christian Mingle, a Christian online dating website.

Actually, I’d made it earlier in December, because my mom and others told me to try it, as a way of getting over that hard experience and “widening my circle”. But I did it very reluctantly, with the express purpose of proving them wrong and showing them that online dating didn’t work and now could they please just let me be single?

I set my search parameters extremely high. I read profile after profile without a bit of emotion and found a multitude of reasons why each person wouldn’t be a good fit. I used the jerks that messaged me as proof that online dating was, at best, a grand waste of time.

But God was telling me to hope. And Christian Mingle had a sale, that first week of 2020. I’m a sucker for sales. Thus far I’d had a free profile, which meant that I couldn’t message anyone, just respond to messages. So when my mom challenged me to read all the profiles within my strict search parameters, find people I would actually want to write to, then get a paid profile and message them, I prayed seriously about it and decided to do it.

I found 4 people. Two people hadn’t been on the site in months, so were unlikely to reply, but they both mostly met my requirements. One guy seemed okay, but had a very short profile description.

And then there was Erik.

The man with whom I was a 99% match. The man whose profile description so caught my eye that I had read it repeatedly and wondered. The man whose passionate love for God was evident and whose heart for making disciples was clear. I knew he was the man I had to message first.

And so on Saturday, January 4, I messaged Erik, telling him I was interested in starting a conversation, if he would like. His reply was prompt, letting me know that he would write more the next day, as he was busy right then, but how could he pray for me now?

There was a settled weight on me when I read that. I had been treating online dating flippantly, using it mainly to prove my mother wrong. But this was a “check”, a reminder that the man I was talking to was my brother in Christ, not someone to be used to advance my own selfish purposes.

I swallowed hard, prayed, and engaged the conversation accordingly. Within a week we were investing a few hours every day writing to each other, asking each other hard questions and evaluating each other as a potential marriage partner. I began to piece together a picture of what marriage to him might be like: risky, poured out for the sake of the Gospel, boldly proclaiming Christ, living on the edge, an uncertain future.

Against my will, I dared to hope just a tiny bit. A couple weeks into it, I started mentioning to friends that I was talking to a guy, and I described him by saying that I’d never met anyone who was more passionate about pursuing Christ than he was.

Throughout the month of January, written words flowed freely. He challenged me, encouraged me, and cared for me. He asked me about my days and told me about his. He pushed me towards Christ and I found myself more bold in sharing the Gospel and standing for what I believed. I prayed for him in conversations he was having with people he was witnessing to or discipling. I saw God using him to sharpen me.

It was getting harder to stay uninvolved emotionally. He was putting equal effort into the conversation and pursuing me very intentionally. I smiled whenever I got a notification that I had a message from him. There never was anything casual about our relationship, and yet somewhere along the way he became a friend, too.

I’d hinted that he could call me, but was content to wait till he was ready. After nearly 200 pages of messages (if printed as 12 pt. font on 8.5x11 paper) and over 70,000 written words, he called me on January 28. That first phone call lasted 4.5 hours, during which he asked if he could come visit. My yes was easy and yet weighty. I knew what visiting meant. I knew that Erik was the kind of man I could marry. I didn’t know yet if he was the particular man I wanted to marry.

I prayed for wisdom and clarity, asked friends to pray with and for me, and then, on Friday, January 31, I went confidently to Brewminattis for my first date with this godly man I had never met.

I didn’t meet a stranger. I met a friend who set me instantly at ease, with whom I could laugh and talk freely, and I knew it would not be hard to fall in love with him.

Though I didn’t admit it to myself then, I knew I’d met my future husband.

Our first date lasted 14 hours. We prayed, talked, went for a walk, he watched me do a classroom presentation on sexual integrity (abstinence) at a local high school (pre-scheduled and I couldn’t cancel it), had a memorable lunch, then went home and he spent 7 hours meeting and being questioned by my family. It was the first time I had ever brought a guy home, after all. At the end of the night, he asked me for a second date the following weekend, and I talked him home for another 3 hours.

I was officially dating Erik Leask. It seemed too good to be true. Within 4 days of our first date, I wrote in my journal, “I think Erik Leask intends to marry me”. I was in awe of God. The thought of marrying him brought great delight.

We spent every weekend together, talked on video chat every night we weren’t together. We prayed together and read Scripture together. We got to know each other’s communities and families. We saw each other in various contexts. We prayed and sought counsel. We laughed together and every moment was treasured. We talked through every topic we could think of, from the unimportant to the big things that could potentially impact a marriage.

And I fell in love. It didn’t take long, before we told each other we loved each other. He had my respect and my trust, and I knew there was nobody else I would rather spend the rest of my life with. God’s hand was clearly upon our relationship and there was total peace.

It didn’t take long before we started talking about getting engaged. The calendar said it had only been a few weeks, but when you know, you know - and we both very quickly knew that we wanted to marry each other.

On March 17, 2020, my beloved asked me to marry him and I said yes, that it would be my honor and joy to be his wife. At least that’s what I think I said. That moment feels like slow-motion and a blur all at once. I remember hugging him tightly afterwards, rather unaware of my family surrounding us, as he had proposed in front of them.

I still can hardly believe it, that I actually get to marry Erik. I prayed for him long before I called him mine. I get to love him. I’m so looking forward to June 13, where I will get to promise to love him and respect him and say “I do” for the rest of our lives. What an incredible gift I have been given.

Love is a journey, one that God is using for His glory and our good. My prayers is that our relationship, wedding, and marriage will glorify Him above all else. Not because of anything good we have done, but because of His perfect faithfulness. May His name be glorified in and through us.


Erik’s Perspective:

Anyone that knows me is aware of my penchant for story-telling and the written word; they are both mediums in which I take great delight, though that delight likely vastly outweighs my skill in utilizing those mediums. I often include superfluous details that, while they could potentially be nice for the avid listener or reader, are likely unwanted by whoever happens to be subjected to listening to me. Yet you, oh poor soul, have stumbled upon a situation where I know full well that you want to read, and so I get to write, superfluous details and all. I will do my best though to limit the inane details and guide my fingers to write something engaging and interesting.

Andrea already did an excellent overview of the trajectory of our relationship from that first message that she sent on January 4th, to our first date on January 31st, to our engagement on March 17th, and so I will not redundantly write an overview. Rather, I want to give you a close-up view of some of the moments I most deeply treasure in our relationship. To do this, I want to run through a series of firsts: our first phone call, our first date, and the first (and pretty much the only time still) time I managed to surprise her.

Our first phone call was so memorable yet such a blur. We had just invested 3.5 weeks into messaging for hours per day back and forth and had talked through a myriad of topics already and I was already quite fond of her; she seemed to be, on the surface, like everything that I had prayed for in a woman over the course of all of those years, on my knees before the Lord begging to meet my wife. Yet, there was a nervousness that I had. Questions rushed through my mind, like: “What if she doesn’t like my voice or sense of humor or the way I talk? What if it’s hard to talk to her and this conversation doesn’t continue? What if she’s not who she said she was?” The what if questions were numerous and loud in my mind. Yet… I didn’t think any of those would be answered negatively. I was allowing myself to hope that she would be exactly who I thought she was.

I was shocked to find out that she wasn’t exactly who I thought she was. In fact, she was so much more than who I thought she was. That first moment that I heard her voice I was set at ease and blown away; I had never heard a voice that sounded so beautiful. As the conversation continued and we talked about evermore topics, I was overwhelmed continually by how much I enjoyed talking with Andrea. She was so easy to talk to about the most serious of topics and also to seamlessly transition to laughing and joking around with. I could hold conversations with her about deeply intellectual topics and she was intelligent enough to track along and delve into those complex topics. I quickly came to the realization that she was everything I had prayed for and even more. I knew what I had to do: I had to take her on a date. It didn’t matter to me that she lived 200 or so miles away. Truthfully she could have lived a plane ride distance away and I still would have gone as soon as possible. I needed to meet her. So, I asked her on our first date.

Andrea lives about a 3.5 hour drive away from Tigard. It wasn’t a light decision to go on a date with her and it was naturally going to be an all day thing when I met her. We decided to meet at a coffee shop called Brewminatti’s in Prosser, Washington around 8:30-9am, which meant that I had to be awake by about 3am after having worked the previous day for 14 hours so I was exhausted. I remember being so excited the entire drive up, and praying for Andrea and about Andrea. Some of those nerve-wracking what if questions had popped up again, but I was fighting them through prayer and listening to His Word. My goal on this date was to make sure we got along, that I was attracted to her, and that she was a godly woman who the Lord was actively sanctifying.

So when I parked outside of Brewminatti’s, I was somewhat nervous, exhausted, and excited all at once. The what if questions raged through my head one more time, but I once again tuned them out in a brief prayer and walked inside to meet Andrea. I was blown away. She was far more beautiful than I could have even imagined, her smile was breathtaking and she was tall. She was wearing a blue polka dot dress which made me laugh because blue polka dots was one of our already growing list of inside jokes. I got closer and was able to tell just how beautiful her eyes were and when she gave me a very eager side hug to greet me (it was a Christian first date after all) I knew what I needed to know on that Friday January 31st at 8:47am. As long as this woman was who she had portrayed herself to be, I knew that I was going to marry her, if she would give me that honor. All doubts, all tension, all nervousness, all wondering if it would be worth it to drive 3.5 hours each way on little sleep to meet her, all of that was flung out of my mind as if it was shot out of a cannon.

There were so many memorable moments on our first date that I could have mentioned from our walk in the park, to lunch at Wine O’Clock, or her AWARE presentation, or meeting her family, but the most memorable thing to me was not any of the events, the most memorable aspect was first seeing Andrea and knowing that I had finally found my wife. She surprised me in so many incredible ways. I’m not very good at surprises but I did manage to pull one off.

It was the beginning of March, roughly a week before we got engaged. I had been coming up to the Yakima Valley and spending every weekend up here (whilst staying at her pastor’s house in the guest room) in order to see Andrea and to get to know her family better. I was too tired on Sunday evening to make the long drive back to Portland safely and so I spent an extra evening up in the Yakima Valley in order to ensure the drive home was safe. Plus, I got the extra bonus of getting to spend Monday morning with the woman I love. She had to go to her job as a secretary at her church by 8:30 or so and then at 11:40 she had to go to her job at Life Options. We got together for a couple of hours before her first job started and then she went in and we said goodbye. I know though that she is far too smart, and I’m far too talkative, to keep surprises actually hidden from her; she knows this too. So I purposefully did a few things that made it seem like I was trying to surprise her by staying to see her between her jobs before heading back to Portland and that that was the surprise. This threw her off the scent of even considering that I had anything else up my sleeves.

So I used my time between her jobs to get her a vase of flowers including her favorite color (pink), my favorite color (blue), and these little white baby’s breath flowers that she loves, and wrote a note to her that used both English and Spanish. I then took this to her work, talked with her coworkers for a little while, and kept dropping hints to Andrea that I hadn’t left the Yakima Valley in order to make sure she was focused on the decoy “surprise”. And boy did it work!

She wasn’t surprised at all to see me when she got to Life Options but she was quite happy to see me. We talked outside for a little bit and then I went inside with her. She had just said hi to her boss when I directed her attention to the flowers on her desk. She turned around and her jaw dropped, through the floor and all the way through the center of the Earth to China, and then came back… ok, maybe that’s a minor exaggeration… but only a minor one. But what did follow was the most incredible and expansive smile I have ever seen on her face. Her blue eyes glistened like the sun reflecting off of the ocean as she was left speechless and tightly hugged me. My goal was for her to know how deeply I love her and, in that moment, I knew that my message was received loud and clear. It didn’t matter to me that I had effectively sacrificed a day of work that I could have had by leaving earlier. The hours of sitting around waiting to get only a few minutes with her were irrelevant. There was an opportunity to show her affection and love in a uniquely powerful way, and there was no way that I was going to pass that up; this is the woman I was going to marry and romance is a gift that I can continually strive to provide for her. And she, in return, showed me profound gratitude, love, and respect. God’s Word actually talks about wives giving husbands respect that is born out of the husbands’ actively loving his wife.

The seminal passage on Biblical roles within marriage is found in chapter 5 of Ephesians, Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus. It says this:

"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” The mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband." (Ephesians 5:22-33)

There is far too much here to discuss in this medium, yet I would like to hone in on a couple of particular aspects of this passage. So, if you would like to know more about this passage and Christian thoughts on marriage, I recommend you check out “What Did You Expect” by Paul Tripp and “Sacred Marriage” by Gary Thomas; these are excellent resources that will help you see marriage from a Biblical perspective and challenge you to really do the hard work that is necessary to honor God in your marriage, and thereby greatly improve your marriage. That aside, the first aspect that I would like to focus on is the onus that is placed on the husband.

In Ephesians 5:22-33, the duty of the wife to submit to her husband is mentioned, but only for 3 verses. Paul then belabours the point on the husband’s responsibilities within marriage for 9 verses, in which he writes, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”. Wow! What a demanding expectation! How did Christ love the church? He went to the cross and gave up his very life for the sake of the individual and collective members (persons) that compose the body of Christ. So what Paul is asking of husbands is this: husbands, sacrifice everything that you can for your wives, including your life, and love her perfectly. Can this demand be lived up to? Absolutely not! I believe that this expectation is given so that we may be convicted of how we fail to live up to God’s standards and may see, through our marriages, our desperate need for the guiding hand of God in our lives and that we may surrender and submit our lives to Him, that He may work in and through us men for the sake of our wives. This is an excellent article on love our wives like Jesus loved the church: www.desiringgod.org/articles/love-your-wife-like-jesus-loves-her. Please read it men, and act on loving your wife like Christ loved the church, not as a work to earn the merit of God, but to honor God by cherishing your wife; to serve Jesus through the continual pursuit of your wife.

The second aspect of this passage that I want to look at is embodied in this phrase found within its confines, “The mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” The marriage of two broken sinners that are nevertheless members of the body of Christ, his church, is a mysterious picture of the gospel. I don’t pretend to know all of the details going into our marriage, nor will I pretend to know how the puzzle pieces together when we’ve been married for 50 years, Lord willing.

Yet, I do know what the gospel itself is: the gospel, the good news, is that Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, came in the flesh to the Earth and lived a perfect sinless life even though He was tempted as you and I are tempted. We are broken, sinners that have committed crimes, that is sin, against a Holy God and are all worthy of suffering under the weight of the judgement of God for all of eternity, because we have sinned against an eternal God. God is just and cannot simply pass over sin without punishing it. If a man murdered the person closest to you and it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt through the evidence, then the judge let that man off because the judge says “I am a merciful judge and you will be made free without punishment” then you would be outraged and cry out about a miscarriage of justice. Likewise, God, being a just judge, cannot simply pass over sin because He is merciful. Yet God is merciful! So, how do those two seemingly contradictory things come together harmoniously? The answer is Jesus.

Jesus being God incarnate in the flesh was fully capable of taking that judgement that we deserved upon Himself, that cannot simply be passed over by someone saying they are a “good person” or any other reason that is based on their own merit or worthiness. God is worthy and Jesus is God. So Jesus took the punishment, the wrath of God, that was due on you upon Himself, that you may live in peace with God for eternity; not through your work, but because of the work of Jesus Christ that was done on the cross. All you must do is repent of your sins, and believe that Jesus is God who was crucified, buried, and raised from the dead, conquering sin and death in His resurrection. So please, ponder your eternal destiny right now. Think about God’s holiness in comparison to your sins. Look at Jesus’ death on the cross and see the tremendous love that He showed through His brutal torture and death for all those who would repent and believe the gospel. Read God’s Word, especially the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as well as the books of Ephesians and Romans, respectively. And, if you want to be made a new creation by the Lord, one who no longer lives for the world but lives in peace with God for the purpose of bringing Him glory, then repent and believe the gospel. Reach out to myself or Andrea if you need prayer, if you need someone to talk to, have questions about the gospel, or desire to repent and follow Jesus with your life. We are here for you.

If you are a Christian already, please pray for myself and Andrea to glorify the Lord through our marriage and the unification of our lives. Please let us know how we may pray for you as well. Our lives do not belong to us, but they belong to Christ, that we may pursue Him and labor for His glory.


Further Resources:

The Gospel (Short Version) youtu.be/qqHUSwmv3gg

The Gospel (longer): www.youtube.com/watch

The Gospel of Jesus Christ by Paul Washer www.amazon.com/Gospel-Jesus-Christ-Paul-Washer-ebook/dp/B01N5VB21T/ref=sr_1_2

The Gospel According to God by John MacArthur www.amazon.com/Gospel-according-God-Rediscovering-Remarkable-ebook/dp/B074ZHMZ4N/ref=sr_1_1

Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas www.amazon.com/Sacred-Marriage-What-Designed-Happy/dp/B01I1XJL3E/ref=sr_1_1

Apologia Studios www.youtube.com/channel/UCK9RJwC7Er16-Y8dvIQ-3tw