by Cole
During one of our breaks, Savannah and I got together with my friends and she talked openly about the changes God was making in her life. I loved that. She opened up and shared things about her past that she didn’t have to share, but she did it without embarrassment or shame. She could have thought all my friends were perfect people who’d judge her for her past, but that didn’t stop her from opening up. Her story showed the power of God not only to forgive our pasts but also to give us a brand-new life.
Savannah
Before MOTION, Cole let me know he’d made a commitment to God to wait until marriage to have sex. I told him I felt the same way, but I felt that way because that’s how Cole felt. Waiting meant a lot to him, which is why it became important to me. After MOTION my commitment to sexual purity came out of my commitment to Christ, not to Cole. I surrendered all those things I did before—sex, drinking, partying—things that separated me from God. I gave them all to God because I wanted to live like Jesus. But I didn’t just make a commitment to give things up. I felt a desire for God like I had not felt for a very long time. I wanted to know Him and get close to Him and live for Him. When I share my testimony today, I make it clear that Cole did not save me, but God used him, first, to show me what was possible and then to open my heart up to God with nothing held back. At MOTION I decided I wanted to live for Him for the rest of my life.
11
Social Media
Cole
Social media can be great, and we have a lot of fun with it. But it has a dark side. People feel like they get to know you through your posts and, to some degree, they do. What can be tricky is that, of course, you want people you’re connecting with to like you, but you have to remember they don’t really know you. All I know is it can really hurt when they turn around and say some pretty terrible things.
My first taste of how potentially crazy-making this can be came after I first started posting pictures of Savannah and me together. Neither one of us made a big announcement about our relationship on Instagram or anywhere else. We each just posted pictures of us together without a lot of explanation. Both of us posted the same first photo of the two of us together. We took it at the house where we stayed in San Francisco. The two of us are under a couch cushion and blanket fort with the caption: “Finally found someone who likes blanket forts as much as I do.” Savannah wrote, “He makes me laugh & he likes blanket forts. #IWin.” Neither of us said anything about dating each other, but we pretty much did. Two days later we decided to be more direct. We went public with our status when we both posted pictures of us with the Golden Gate Bridge behind us.
In their posted comments, people were so happy for us. But not everyone felt that way. A few asked a lot of questions about Everleigh, and some wrote some pretty mean things about us, especially about Savannah. Part of me just wanted to ignore the negative comments because if there’s anything I’ve learned about putting my life out there on social media, it’s that there will always be negative people who say hurtful things. However, I decided to address the negative comments because one of the reasons we’d gone public with our relationship was to show the world how amazing a godly relationship can be. People follow so many unhealthy relationships on social media that we felt like the time had come to let people see a healthy relationship as it grew. That’s why I wrote the following with a photo of us together on my Instagram, right after Sav and I hung out together in San Francisco:
This is my girlfriend.
I didn’t want to have to do this, but I feel it’s needed after all the confusion. Anybody who knows me knows how extremely picky I am, and how I would never date someone just to date someone. I’ve actually never had a girlfriend before just because I’ve never met someone who seemed right and fit my standards. Someone who laughs with me constantly, loves my goofiness, is my best friend, and most importantly encourages and grows my walk with Christ every second. Savannah is amazing, and anyone who thinks differently just because of what you may see on the outside or assume based on one’s past obviously doesn’t know the redeeming God that we know. Our relationship is rooted in Jesus, and we are both believing in the fruit that will be produced because of us choosing Him first. She is in no way bad for me and in no way distracting me from God. Rather encouraging me and opening up new areas in my life for God to work in that I wasn’t even aware needed fixing. God takes our worst, forgives it, and throws it in the deepest part of the ocean. That goes for any and everyone. Sin is sin, but I believe this God who created the universe from nothing, who conquered sin and death, and who can make the sun stand still is big enough to turn something the enemy deemed for destruction into such a blessing that brings God ultimate glory. I don’t know what God has planned for the future. But I do know what He has planned for now, and now is amazing. Our relationship won’t be perfect. We know that. We are imperfect people. But we are putting everything in the hands of who is perfect and trusting that. Thanks for sticking around with me all this time, guys, and I hope you decide to support us through this :)
After that post the comments were pretty supportive. From then on the two of us posted pictures of everything we did. We still got some mean comments, but they were rare. The biggest like I still hoped to get wasn’t from anyone on Instagram.
It was from my parents.
On her first trip to Alabama, Savannah did not meet my mom and dad. She flew into Birmingham for MOTION and flew home as soon as it was over. We didn’t have time to drive 150 miles south to my home in Enterprise. She might have stayed an extra few days to meet them, and she really wanted to meet them, but the day after MOTION ended, John Stephen and I got on a plane for a mission trip in Bolivia. As great as the mission trip was, and it changed my life, it was one of the hardest weeks of my life because I had zero contact with Savannah. My phone didn’t work down there, and even if it had, I had too much to do to spend any time on the phone. I tried texting her when I got back to our hotel at night, but the Wi-Fi was so spotty that maybe five texts went through the entire week. The week apart was good for us, though. Missing each other just made us love and appreciate each other even more. Savannah also surprised me by committing to sponsor one of the little girls I met on the mission trip. (We still sponsor her today through Compassion International.)
Two weeks after I returned from Bolivia, Savannah flew out to Alabama for my twentieth birthday. We joked about how excited she was to no longer be dating a teenager. I guess a twenty-three-year-old dating a twenty-year-old sounds a lot better than a twenty-three-year-old dating someone who is only nineteen.
The trip was about more than my birthday. This was the big test for Savannah. She was about to meet my entire crazy family. If she was still interested in me after meeting my four brothers, this girl was definitely the real deal!
Savannah
Cole met my mom before we even started thinking about dating each other, which meant there was no pressure on Cole when I introduced him to her. I wasn’t dating Cole then, but my mom would have been for it if I had. She loved Cole from the start, mainly because she didn’t think much of the other boys I’d dated and she could tell he was a good Christian guy who treated people with respect. Cole was definitely an upgrade in her eyes. And Cole met my dad before we were officially boyfriend and girlfriend. I’m so grateful that went well too.
I write all of that to make it clear that both of my parents had met and loved Cole before I ever met Cole’s parents. When I flew out for Cole’s twentieth birthday to meet them for the first time, I definitely felt a lot of pressure. I think I’d said hi to them a time or two when they walked past the camera while Cole and I were FaceTiming. His little brother, Tate, and his sister, Lily, always jumped in to talk to me, but that’s what little brothers and sisters do. I didn’t know what his parents thought of Cole dating me. He said they were cool with it, but I was still nervous. I thought they’d have a million questions about my past and about Everleigh. I was most nervous about meeting Cole’s dad. I knew he was, like, the stron
gest Christian guy ever just from what Cole had told me about him. A lot of the people who said really judgmental things about Cole and me on our Instagram pages claimed to be Christians. I doubted Cole’s dad was like those people because Cole wasn’t, but you never know what someone is like until you actually meet them.
I flew in to the Atlanta airport where Cole was waiting for me at the baggage claim. When I saw him, I rushed into his arms, and he held me for the longest time. Being together was so good! He’d come alone so we could have a few hours by ourselves in the car, just to talk. Rather than drive to his parents’ home in Enterprise, we met his family at a beach house in Panama City, Florida, which was about three hours from the airport. On the drive down I told Cole I was excited but also nervous about meeting his parents. He told me not to worry, that they were going to love me. I hoped so, but honestly, how could I not be concerned? This was so important to me, to us—especially if there was ever going to be a future us. Of course, Cole had already filled his parents in about my past. Thankfully that meant most of their questions might already be answered.
When we walked in the door, his whole family was lined up to meet me. His mom and dad were really nice, and so were his brothers, but they immediately asked me why I wanted to date such a loser as Cole. I got the feeling they really looked forward to Cole finally bringing a girl around so they could go at him. I just laughed and played along. Cole had warned me about his brothers. With four brothers and only one sister, Cole had a more male-oriented family dynamic than I had. Lily, his six-year-old sister, and Cole’s mom were definitely outnumbered. Cole had told me to prepare myself for a house full of farting and burping and pretty much every sound and smell the human body could produce. I thought they were all hilarious.
Cole’s dad was the first one to come over to me after Cole introduced me. He gave me a big hug and welcomed me. That meant a lot to me. Then his mom hugged me. Lily jumped up on me like she’d been waiting her whole life for another girl to come into this family. She was just so cute. His brothers did all the things Cole warned me they were going to do. They did everything they could to embarrass Cole, which made me laugh. I connected right off with all of them. Cole was right about his parents too. I don’t know why I ever worried over meeting them. His mom became like a best friend to me. She immediately made me feel part of the family even though Cole and I had just started dating. And his dad was absolutely great toward me. He and Cole are so much alike. I had a great time being around him.
Cole
My birthday weekend at the beach flew by. We swam in the ocean, hung out with all my friends, ate great food, rode rides, and just had a blast. Before we left Panama City, I told Savannah we should think about doing something on YouTube. I already had my own channel with around one hundred thousand followers, but I rarely posted anything. Even though we might see each other only every couple of weeks, we could still shoot a couple of short vlogs and post something once a week. I figured it’d be fun to do something together while also showing people what a godly relationship looks like. I think the world needs more of that. Plus, making our relationship so public and being so open about our faith also made us accountable to the people watching. Knowing people were watching us made me that much more determined to stay pure sexually and not to go back on our word to God. No matter how strong our commitments might be, our flesh is weak. Accountability helps us keep commitments.
When I mentioned putting our relationship videos on YouTube, Savannah agreed right away. We stopped the car, I pulled out my phone, and we shot our first video right then! Compared to our later work, it’s pretty rough. I kept looking at the screen, then back at the camera, before finally saying something like, “What’s up, guys? This is my girlfriend.” We both laughed a lot. I told whoever might watch that we planned to post videos of our dating relationship at least once a week. We didn’t feel like we were launching a channel or taking the first step down a new career path. We didn’t even know if anyone would watch. Even if no one saw it, we had a good time recording it.
That first video with Sav and me got a lot more views than I expected. The comments and e-mails we received afterward made us think, Okay, this is probably something we should keep doing. Little did I know that in just a couple of weeks, the whole thing was going to take off and go to heights we never imagined. At the time, we were just focused on figuring out how to make this long-distance relationship work and scheduling the next time we were going to see each other.
12
Everleigh
Savannah
I flew home from Cole’s birthday weekend thinking, I hope that’s my future family. I thought it would be the best thing ever to be a part of this big, crazy, noisy group of people who obviously really loved each other and loved being together. And, yes, his brothers were just as gross as Cole warned me they would be, but I loved being around them. They were hilarious together! Rather than scare me off, that time with his brothers, his sister, and his mom and dad made me want to be with them that much more. Everleigh and I didn’t have a large extended family nearby, and I began to realize that was something I wanted for my daughter. I could see Everleigh and Cole’s little sister becoming great friends. The way Cole’s mom and dad welcomed me, I knew they’d do the same for Ev.
At this stage of my relationship with Cole, Everleigh was my top concern. I could certainly feel myself falling in love with Cole. I already couldn’t imagine my life without him. However, any relationship I had with a guy could never be just about me. My biggest concern was always, always, always Everleigh. I never wanted to date anyone, much less get serious about any guy, who did not love Everleigh as his own. I also wanted to protect her heart, which is why I was extra cautious about bringing any guy, even one as awesome as Cole, into her life. Not having her father and me together was already confusing enough for her. The last thing I wanted to do was introduce someone into her life she might think of as a father only to have him leave her as well.
Beyond protecting Ev’s heart, I was also aware that my having a boyfriend would be a big adjustment for her. Until Cole came into the picture, Everleigh and I were together nearly 24/7. Before I became pregnant with her, I attended junior college with a nursing major. I had started college classes while in high school, and once I entered junior college, I took eighteen credits a semester. When Everleigh was born, I sort of freaked out about the long hours of school I’d have to do to finish my last two years of nursing school. While I wanted to be a nurse, and I knew I needed to have a good job to support myself as a single mom, I wanted to be a mom more. I talked it over with my mother, and we decided that I should make a change. Teaching appealed to me because I’d have the same holidays as Everleigh once she started school. I changed my major to education and transferred to Long Beach State. Their online classes allowed me to go to school while staying home with Everleigh. We were always together even while we slept. Even though she had her own room, she slept with me every night. I didn’t mind. I liked having her close.
Being a good mom meant I had a pretty limited social life. For almost four years, I didn’t date—except for seeing Everleigh’s father. Even those “dates” hardly counted unless you count taking your daughter to the park together as a date. Tommy and I got along great then because Ev was with us. If and when Tommy and I were alone, we didn’t get along well, but I kept Everleigh from seeing that. I was always very honest with her about why her dad and I weren’t together. At the same time, I want her to have a good relationship with her father. That’s going to be especially important as she gets older.
Now that I had a boyfriend, I wondered how Ev might handle it. How would she deal with sharing me with someone else? A couple of months had passed since Cole and I started crushing on each other during VidCon. We’d done the long-distance thing long enough to know both of us wanted it to work. And Everleigh knew I talked to Cole—a lot. She sometimes popped in during our FaceTime conversations to tell him hi. My two trips to Alabama had convinced me Col
e was exactly who I thought he was. After his family welcomed me, and showed they loved me unconditionally, I knew I could safely introduce Cole to Everleigh as my boyfriend.
Cole planned to fly out to visit me over Labor Day weekend. The Monday holiday gave us an extra day together. We always tried to steal a little extra time—when you date long distance, even one day is huge. About a week before he came out, I sat down with Everleigh for a talk. I asked her, “You remember Mommy’s friend Cole?” Of course, Everleigh remembered him even though she was only three. “How would you feel if Cole became Mommy’s boyfriend?”
“I would love that!” Everleigh said. “I love him. I love Cole.”
“Would it be okay if he came out and spent a couple of days with us?” I asked.
Everleigh loved the idea. Even though I didn’t need her approval to have Cole come out, I wanted her to be comfortable with him and with my relationship with him, especially in the beginning. I can honestly say that if she had objected to the idea, Cole and I would have slowed things down until she was comfortable. Like I said, I put my daughter first, even before my own happiness.