Story
CHRISTINA: I first laid eyes on this handsome man in 2014 when Peter's brother married a girl from my church. Peter was the Best Man so I did hear him give a speech, but we didn’t actually get introduced to each other. We both met a few of each other’s family members, and that was it. Neither of us thought anything of it.
The next year, my brother married a girl from Wichita, and I needed a place to stay so I asked his sister if I could stay with them. They said yes, and thus I came to meet the whole Cook family including this Peter Cook guy. Again though, neither of us thought anything of it.
PETER: Another year and then another wedding. In April 2016 my sister and I attended a wedding in Austin and ended up staying at the Hastings’ residence. By the end of the weekend, I realized this Christina girl was special. Like really special. I prayed about it then reached out to Christina’s dad about pursuing her. Christina ended up politely declining. Simple as that, it wasn’t too hard for either of us, and we both went our merry way (“merry” not “marry”, just to be clear).
CHRISTINA: Sorry Honey! I didn't know him well then, and I was slow to catch on to what Peter knew all along: that he and I are a match made in Heaven! But God in His sovereignty wasn’t directing us together yet! He had some lessons for us to learn first!
PETER: We saw each other once more at a conference in 2017, spoke briefly, and that was it.
CHRISTINA: In the fall of 2018 I was hired by a couple from Peter’s church to fly to Wichita and photograph their wedding. I needed both a second shooter and a place to stay, and his sister Elaine volunteered for both so I once again stayed at the Cook home!
No joke, before I arrived in Wichita, my dad alerted me that he thought Peter would be interested. And this is with Peter and I having no communication up to this point, and we hadn’t seen each other in over a year. But the thing is my dad had texted Peter about something after which Peter had asked to set up a call with him to hear about one of our recent overseas trips. My dad loves to tell stories, and they ended up talking for over three hours! So my dad was suspicious that any young man willing to spend three hours on the phone listening to an older man’s travel stories HAS to be interested in his daughter!
PETER: Well I think your dad is genuinely very interesting and I enjoy hearing his travel stories! It's funny to hear them say that they were suspicious just from that one conversation because I hadn't been thinking about her when I talked to her dad, but as soon as she came for the visit I was definitely enraptured so perhaps her dad had insight into my subconscious brain before I knew it myself!
CHRISTINA: God had done a lot in my life the two years prior, and I was now tentatively excited about Peter’s potential interest because I knew from our limited contact that he had the high character of the kind of man I hoped to marry.
One evening while I was at the Cook home for the 2018 wedding, Peter and I started talking about taxes pertaining to my photography business.
PETER: Little did she know that she was speaking my love language. We started with taxes and then covered the gamut of topics from taxes to entrepreneurship to ministry to traveling and more. Before we knew it, the clock struck 2:00am and her magic was still strong.
CHRISTINA: Peter convinced me that if I hired him to be my CPA he would save me a lot of money. It actually seemed extremely simple: hire him, he does the work, I save money. No brainer! So I hired him!
PETER: She was mine! Ok, well, just my client, but I figured that was a good start! After she left, I couldn't get my new client out of my head. I conveniently was heading to San Antonio for a work trip the next month and asked the Hastings if I could drop in for a weekend visit since I was in the area (even though she actually lives two hours away from my work client). Her family welcomed me!
CHRISTINA: Peter didn’t state his interest on the trip, but that wasn’t an issue to me because I knew Peter is such an intentional guy and he wasn’t the type to take a two-hour-out-of-the-way weekend trip to visit a middle-aged couple with only a single daughter living with them if he wasn’t interested. I figured he probably just didn’t want to be as direct as in 2016 when things didn’t go anywhere. I was cautiously interested too so I was on board with him coming and developing a friendship.
PETER: On Christmas Day 2018, I texted Christina’s dad about talking at some point. It just so happened that the best time for both of us to chat was when I would be at the Atlanta airport about to fly around the world for a few weeks. At the end of my overseas venture, I would be returning to the USA and attending a conference Christina was attending too! After asking him about pursuing his daughter, he gave his approval and recommended I ask her directly when I saw her in a few weeks.
I was nervous and excited (but mainly jetlagged) during the conference, and conveniently Christina and I were flying out from the Atlanta airport at about the same time. My sister Elaine was flying with me, but she knew what was up so she offered to “go watch the planes take off.” There in Concourse C, Gate 6, I poured out my heart and laid bare my interest. “What do you think of that?” She replied, “Let me get back with you,” as the attendant called her boarding group.
CHRISTINA: I needed to assemble my thoughts so I emailed him several days later and told him we could start doing intentional FaceTime calls to get to know each other. This was late January 2019. By the end of March we officially started calling it a relationship. I actually had a funny dream in March 2019 a couple of nights before we made the relationship official. We’ll spare you having to read the details but ask us in real life sometime.
PETER: In May 2019 there was a breakthrough in our relationship, and things would probably have progressed faster except that Christina was signed up to attend a Bible program in Colorado for a couple of months. I did visit her for a few days, and we actually hiked to Dream Lake which is where we took our engagement photos years later! Following that trip, I spent several weeks overseas and away from each other. August finally rolled around with catch up time together and Christina planning an incredible day of surprises for my birthday!
CHRISTINA: Things were going super well in August 2019, but then in September we had some hard conversations and decided to break up. It was pretty sudden and was one of the hardest things we’ve ever done, but I was confident that it was the right thing to do. We don't regret it at all. Something encouraging I was told by a friend when we broke up: “Christina, if God wants you to marry Peter down the road, it’ll work out. Not even a breakup can stop God's plan. You can trust in the sovereignty of God.”
We didn’t communicate at all for 15 months except for a couple of professional emails about taxes when Peter very professionally told me how to save that money he had promised to save me.
PETER: The timing of the breakup was remarkable and certainly providential for maximizing growth in our lives. Looking back we both agree that it was for the best, and that God really used the time apart to bring healing and growth. A year passed and Christina was still on my mind.
CHRISTINA: Then God did the miraculous. We began dating again in April 2021. There were a number of ups and downs even after that, but now 2022 has been wildly amazing. We're crazy about each other and so convinced that God wants us to be with each other for life! We hope you can come to our wedding to witness as we covenant together on October 22!
God has used our relationship to help us learn how to communicate better, assume the best in each other, listen to the Lord, and rely on His understanding, not ours. We hope our story encourages you too in some way. Sometimes you can't always see what God’s doing when you’re in the hard parts of a story, but through the tears, you can trust that He is at work and will accomplish His Sovereign and good plan for those that love Him.
May you remember:
-That love stories are each unique.
-That just because your story doesn’t fit your expectations, that doesn’t mean it can’t exceed expectations in the very long run.
-That consistency and persistency go a long way.
-That discernment takes work and patience.
-That the hardest, most painful parts of your story God can redeem into the most meaningful.
-That marriage is worth it.
To God Be The Glory!