Addie & Jonathan’s Story – Part 1

We grew up less than 15 minutes away from each other in neighboring country towns of south Louisiana! We were both homeschooled all the way through, had many mutual friends, and were even in the same room at one point during a graduation ceremony, yet our families didn’t meet each other until January, 2018, at huge a conference in Atlanta!! We met Jon and his family one evening after the scheduled events were over and it was pretty easy to make quick connections when Jon came walking up to us in a handsome LSU hoodie.

Although we barely spoke to each other at the conference, Jon friended me (Addie) on Facebook (I excepted ..surprise surprise) and started following me on Instagram and I followed him back! It was a few weeks later in February that he posted a story on Instagram about my small home town, hoping I would respond to it…and I bit the
bait. 

We texted a little for the next few weeks inviting each other and our siblings to occasional functions like a movie or Bible study that were happening in the area. We also learned that we both loved cats over dogs, which honestly took me back that such a cute mans man like Jon would be a cat person!! I knew I was weird but I didn’t know he was too! 

Most of the summer passed and we didn’t text much. But unknown to us, God was working in both of our hearts and daily circumstances, preparing us for each other.

September rolled around and we connected again after I shared the joy of two little kittens showing up at our home in Nashville. I knew no one would share in the joy like Jon would….

During the fall, we girls made occasional trips from Nashville down to our home in Louisiana and during these trips home, we would get together at both our homes for coffee visits so our families could become better friends. Jon told everyone he knew that my “French press” coffee was the best, which flattered me, of course, but made me wonder if it was really as good as he made it or if there was a hidden reason it was “so amazing”.

The Christmas season rolled around and life kept us busy but not so busy that Jon didn’t text every few weeks. We had a few conversations throughout November and as December came, texting came more frequent too. I started realizing the the time between texts was becoming shorter and more often and I started really liking our conversations but more so, the one I was conversing with. 
On our Christmas tour while we were in San Francisco, a host made us a delicious cup of coffee one morning and so after inquiring about this special coffee (shade grown, low acidity, organic, fair trade, the top 1% of coffee in the world haha), I knew I was going to order some to add to my already large coffee collection. Fifty dollars later and 2 lb of coffee on the way, I texted Jon on the flight home telling him about this new coffee, secretly hoping he would want to try it…..really an excuse for him to come over. It worked!

Throughout December, he came over a lot, even sometimes without his sister! When he came to the house, my sisters and I enjoyed hanging out with him and enjoyed long talks, sharing testimonies, life growing up, theology, and our life dreams and goals. It was apparent that hanging out was becoming something we loved doing, however, nothing had been stated until this point and it felt like the pink elephant under the rug, at times. 
But finally, a new year came and it came with a bigger bang than either of us had planned for!

Photos by: Taylor Cutrer Photo