As for the last few months of this race, God blessed me with one of the richest, sweetest and most intimate seasons of my life. I re-entered my original team, went to what is now my favorite place in the world (Jeffery’s Bay), met a number of wisdom infused lovers of Christ, lived by the beach with grass and water galore, got integrated into a solid community, did outreach with former gang members, cared for orphans, had hours of prayer time every day, read through the whole bible with my team, got to be minorly competent on a surf board, and walked and talked with Jesus through it all. Truly, I feel as though I was living in so many of the promises the Lord had spoken to me.

The Lord brought back to memory a collection of words and prophecies given to me over the course of my life. What felt like passing thoughts in the moment, God re-surfaced them and started weaving them together to create a tapestry of His love in my heart. This marks a season of my life where my trust in the Lord was deepened to great measures.

What a joyful thing it is to trust Him and believe Him.

When He says He will do something, He will. Maybe that’s not the track record for many people in your life, but it’s true for the Lord, and every day the birds sing songs of His faithfulness, and the trees proclaim His steadfast love. Let us attune our pace and mind to see and hear these reminders because this is how our faith is kept alive.

Jeremiah 1:11-12 “I see a branch of an almond tree.” Then the Lord said to me, “You have seen well, for I am ready to perform My word.”

Lord, help us to see well.

He is ready to perform His word. The image of the Father watching attentively over His word in readiness to execute brings a stillness to my soul. I believe the Lord takes us through seasons of not seeing and not hearing, in order to build trust with us. Chances are you’re not going to give yourself to anything or anyone unless you trust it, and He knows that. It’s all an endless pursuit on His end to recapture our attention in order that we would come to Him as children, ever trusting in His goodness. Trust the process of regaining your trust.

I’d love to share a testimony of that in my life. Whilst getting to witness God’s work in the lives of those around me this past year, simultaneously, the Lord was deeply preparing my heart for this current season of life.

For context, my friend Samuel and I met in September 2023 at the beginning of my first race. We both grew an admiration of one another over the course of that 9-month trip, but in honor of the request that we don’t pursue a relationship on the field, my heart waited and wondered how he might feel about me. In May 2024, we addressed our interest in one another but decided with what the Lord had next for him (doing ministry in inner cities up the East Coast in a van), it wasn’t the time to pursue a relationship. I was content to wait another year at this point.

In that year, I spent seven months at home working, a few weeks with Samuel and two friends, road tripping from Georgia to Maine, and then 5 months in the middle east. During my trip to Kyrgyzstan, Turkey and Morocco, Samuel and I were in no contact. We decided to take those months to allow for the Lord to speak to us clearly and uproot what needed to be uprooted in our hearts. I found myself getting delivered from the fear of loss and abandonment. Having given the Lord the space and time, He did wonders in my heart.

I reunited with Samuel in May 2025 once again, and with it being a year since we decided to wait, I anticipated the Lord to bless this relationship. Little did I know, I already had His blessing, but it was His timing that I was estranged to. We concluded that we should not “stir or awaken love until it pleases” (SOS 2:7). With that in mind, we felt the Lord ushering us into a full surrender of all we felt entitled to, and in our own understanding seemed like a good thing. But just as God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Issac, He was asking us to bind ourselves to the altar and sacrifice something that seemed like a promise fulfilled. When we offer what seems like a good thing, God has a way of making it to be something better than what we could have ever dreamed.

Not even for the sake of having a “better” return policy, we laid everything down, knowing it was our obedience before God. So for the past year, Samuel and I weren’t in contact once again, and in that time, I truly found the greatest reward: knowing Christ. By offering what seemed to be one of the most valuable things to me, I found so much of myself given over to Christ in the process of surrender. Through some of the deepest grief in this release, I experienced the deepest fellowship with my dear Lord.

Last December, in Vietnam, I had a dream where I’d seen Samuel setting a table through a window. I came into the house where his dad prayed over me and then Samuel sent me out of the house telling me to “go get ready”. I took that as instruction from the Lord to prepare for whatever He may have in store. Whether right or wrong, I did it in faith.

In the Philippines this past year, I was in one of the prisons to share the word of God and feed the prisoners. It was a group of about 40 men and one single woman in her own cell. We had pretty tough living conditions in Tondo, but nothing like this woman was experiencing. I was so filled with compassion and a deep desire to make this woman feel beautiful. I stood this wishing I had something to give her, and I remembered the necklace Samuel had given me that said “steadfast love” and “faithfulness” in Hebrew, one of my most valued possessions. My heart started pounding because I knew the Lord was asking me to give it away. Realizing this woman was muslim, I knew this could change her life. So in faith, I placed it around her neck through the bar door and began to weep. A moment where so much of my heart came with a small offering, was also a moment when I experienced the greatest relief from the things of this world, and a deepening of awareness of that which is eternal.

Finally, I reconvened with Samuel once again this past May 2026 after another year of waiting on the word of the Lord. A deep hope for the springtime was filling my heart as I held to the promise I received from the Lord a few years back:

“I will redeem male headship in your life.” He spoke after having lost my dad when I was just 11 years old.

I held that loosely as it had been so apparent God has put a number of father figures in my life, and I don’t discredit His provision in that way. Yet, there was still a tinge of my heart that felt this promise had to do with Samuel. But not wanting to put my hope in man, I held my heart open and somewhat afraid.

Samuel and I spend three and a half days together at the end of this trip, and I had already thought of every outcome in my mind and told my mom that I’ve had an immense amount of peace and confirmation that this is the time that pleases the Lord to stir and awaken love, and I would say yes if Samuel were to propose. I concluded that at the end of the day, my yes to enter covenant is a yes independent of Samuel and it’s a commitment to GOD that I will love unto death. If the reward really is knowing Christ, I can marry any man and come to know Christ more by the end of it. In spite of that, Samuel is a man in deep pursuit of life with the King, and this waiting season is evidence of that. I knew all I needed to know.

The last day we spent together (June 1, 2026), I shared the story of how I gave the necklace away to the woman in prison and later that same day, he pulled out the identical necklace. Too stunned to speak, I knew the Lord was returning Issac and I sensed he would propose. We journeyed to Cattlerock Mt. Georgia where we planned to spend the night in prayer. After a number of hours of worship and prayer and the fire dimming, Samuel set a small communion table between us. Flashback to the dream I had of him setting a table…

He proceeded to pray over the sacrament and connected it to the sacrament of marriage and made his proposal as we remembered the one who made a way for us to enter into a covenant with Himself. I accepted, and we partook in the body and blood of Jesus and sat in reverence of our Maker. There was a stillness that night.

The following morning, we visited the Jumping Goat, a coffee shop we wanted to go to two years ago but decided against it after having decided not to date. But then returned after engagement, and I sat in a moment that felt like the Lord wrapping his garment over me as I sat in the promise of having male covering in my life again. Genuinely one of the greatest joys of my life is to be joining lives with one of the most God fearing men I know, and to know Christ more through union with Samuel. We intend to get married in about a year, but you know what happened last time… no but for real this time. I’ll be moving to Virginia Beach this August to work and live in the UNITED STATES! Crazy I know.

I truly am beyond honored to reflect on the time we waited to see God’s gracious hand over these past few years. Remembering the grief, I felt in surrendering this relationship, I’ve become so fond of the sacredness with God that exists in sacrifice.

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Romans 12:1

KEEP YOUR LAMPS BURNING!!