Cole and Sav

by Cole

  Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d ever meet anyone like Cole. I had prayed for a man who would love and respect me and love my daughter. Now Cole was down on one knee in front of Everleigh, asking her if it was okay if he became her daddy. He even gave her a ring to wear until she found a man who would love her the same way Cole loves me.

  Then Cole asked me to be his wife. He told me he’d wanted to marry me from the day he met me. He told me I was his best friend and the one with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life. I felt the same. Of course I said yes, a thousand times over, yes.

  Afterward Cole and I got into my car to drive over to a celebration dinner with our family and friends. He reached over and took my hand, and it felt . . . different. I looked down at the ring on my finger, and I almost wanted to cry. This seemed like a fairy tale come true. For five years, before I met Cole, if anyone asked about marriage, I was always like, “Nah, I don’t want to get married.” All that changed when I met him. And now I really was getting married. I looked over at Cole and thought, I am going to be with you forever. I could hardly wrap my mind around it. I was so happy. I could not stop smiling from ear to ear. I’m getting married!!! I have a guy who is so in love with me and who loves my kid to death. My whole life was about to change. I wished we could have had the wedding right then, at that very moment. I didn’t want to wait. I wanted to marry him now.

  21

  Wedding Planning

  Savannah

  Even before Cole formally asked me to be his wife, I’d made up my mind not to go crazy with all the wedding planning. I knew some Bridezillas. Girls I knew went overboard trying to make everything on the wedding day so perfect that they forgot what it was really all about. Honestly, I didn’t really care that much about all the little wedding details. My mom did most of the planning. She’d ask me questions, and I’d give her my input. I asked Cole for his opinion even though I knew he didn’t care that much either. We set the date for July 9, which meant we had only five and a half months to plan everything. Given everything that has to happen, that wasn’t much time, but I knew that even if we just had our families there and our pastor to perform the ceremony, we’d be just as married as if we took a year to plan the perfect storybook wedding.

  Rather than get caught up in all the wedding planning, I wanted to be all about the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with. I refused to allow the planning process to get in the way of our engagement. This was our time to get ready for the rest of our lives. Even before I met Cole I had made up my mind that if I ever got married it was going to last. Everyone probably thinks that when they first get married, or at least they should, but I had already lived through one divorce and I was not going to go through that again. I sure wasn’t going to put Everleigh and any future children through that. However, you can’t just say you are going to have a marriage that lasts and then hope for the best. You have to work at it, and that work needs to begin long before the wedding day.

  One of the biggest adjustments for me was realizing Cole was not like any other guy I had ever dated. I already knew this, but I still had to remind myself that he was never going to hurt me or leave me. Coming off two relationships that ended when a guy cheated on me left me insecure. If you are insecure, you will push people away. God had to help me get through this.

  I also had to learn to trust Cole and let my heart be soft toward him. Again, guys had hurt me in the past, and I vowed never again. They might try to hurt me, but I will hurt them right back. There were a couple of times right after Cole moved out here that we got into some little arguments, and I immediately went into cutthroat mode, like I was dealing with my ex. With my ex, everything always escalated quickly. It wasn’t all him. I can also be unbelievably stubborn, and I get super-defensive when pushed. When I get in an argument, I’m going to win and prove that I am right, and I don’t care if I have to get up in your face to do it. Cole and I never had any big arguments, but even in the rare occasions when we had a small disagreement, I found myself going at him like he was my ex. Instead of coming straight back at me, Cole became very emotional. I had to repeat over and over to myself, Cole isn’t Tommy. Instead of retreating into a hard heart at the slightest disagreement, I had to be intentional about letting my heart be soft toward Cole. Being vulnerable can be scary, but I knew Cole would never purposefully hurt me. He loves me. He wants what is best for me.

  The only time Cole and I ever really disagreed about anything was when he tried to talk to me about parenting. Parenting and discipline are tricky topics for any stepparent, and Cole was no exception. He left all Ev’s discipline to me. We still talked about what was going on with her, but only in private where she couldn’t hear. One day Cole approached me after I’d threatened to punish Everleigh in the classic parental way: “If you do that again, then you won’t get to go outside and play with your friends today.” Of course, she again did whatever it was I told her not to do, and when she asked if she could go outside and play with her friends, I let her. Cole came to me and told me that I needed to follow through with the rules I make, or Ev would never listen to me. Even though I knew he was right, I argued the point. He listened to me, and eventually I was able to listen to him. He was right. This episode not only helped us learn to communicate, it also helped me realize I no longer had to parent Everleigh alone. We were in this together.

  Cole

  I felt like Savannah and I really knew each other before I moved, but spending all day, every day with her really took our relationship to another level. Sure, we had a wedding to plan, but Savannah’s mom really killed that. Savannah and I both just wanted something simple and outdoorsy with a barn. Beyond that, we didn’t care. I really didn’t do much. If Savannah asked my opinion on anything wedding related, I’d say, “Sure, babe, whatever you want.”

  I wasn’t worried about the wedding. By the end of the day on July 9, we’d be married and flying off to our honeymoon. I was more focused on preparing myself to be the best husband and dad that I could be, and I had less than six months to get ready.

  I’d been thinking about becoming a husband for a very long time, long before I ever met Savannah. My dad set a really great example for me to follow. And I wanted to be a dad myself someday, but until I met Savannah, I never expected it to be so soon, especially not at the age of twenty. After Savannah and Everleigh came into my life, I loved the idea of being a day-to-day dad to Ev, but I didn’t want to just bebop my way into it like a clueless guy, cross my fingers, and hope everything turned out all right. I wanted to prepare myself to be the best dad I could be, even at a young age.

  Right away I decided to become involved in a church where we could get into community with other Christians. Savannah attended a church called Mariners Church in Irvine. I went there with her when I came out for visits. Now that I was living there, the two of us decided to get plugged in. We joined a small group with other engaged or newly married couples. Of course we wanted to deepen our relationship with Christ, and faith grows best when you get connected to a small group of people with the same goal, but this group also made perfect sense for us because everyone in it was in the same place in life. Sav and I listened and tried to learn from the other couples and their experiences. I’ve never thought I had everything all figured out. I learned a ton from the friends we made in our group.

  Once we got plugged into church, I started meeting other guys and building some really good friendships. Because of Everleigh, most of my new friends were dads whose kids were friends with Ev. Nearly all of these guys were in their thirties. No one was as young as me, which didn’t bother me at all. These were great guys and great dads. I paid a lot of attention to how they interacted with their kids. Fatherhood was completely new to me, and I had a lot to learn. Six months earlier I had been a college student with zero responsibilities beyond my class schedule. Now I had a young girl looking to me as her day-to-day father figure, and in five months I’d officially be her stepdad. I needed someone to s
how me the way.

  Two guys especially, Jeff and Andrew, taught me so much. When I moved into Savannah’s mom’s house, Ev was barely four years old. If you’ve never lived with a three- or four-year-old, let me tell you, they can definitely test your patience. On top of that I was trying to adjust to life on the other side of the country while working full-time to grow our social media business. There were times Ev really tested me. Jeff and Andrew had kids around the same age who tested them as well and they showed me how to handle situations with patience. They amazed me. I’ve been in each of their houses when kids were yelling and I felt on edge. I’d look over at them and they’d be completely calm. That’s how I wanted to be. I never want to be one of those dads who yell and curse and make everyone nervous. I know patience doesn’t just happen. I prayed a lot, opening my life up to Jesus and asking Him to give me peace and patience in every situation.

  Savannah

  Connecting with our church helped us connect with each other. We didn’t stop there. During the almost six months of our engagement, Cole and I got to know each other on a deeper level. Part of that came through reading the Bible and praying together. Before I met Cole, I had read the Bible a little bit, but I never really got that into it until he gave me the special Bible he’d marked up for me after MOTION, which helped me dive in to it even more. In the weeks leading up to our wedding, I got super into reading Scripture. That’s not something we put in our videos. You won’t find “Cole and Sav read the Bible today” on our YouTube channel, but that doesn’t mean this wasn’t important to us. I’d say reading the Bible together and praying together were two of the most important things we did to prepare ourselves for marriage. Even though we both loved Jesus and loved to worship openly in church, I found that you connect on a much deeper, spiritual level when you walk with Jesus with your spouse, or in my case, my future spouse. When problems came up or when we needed to make a decision, we prayed together about it. Praying together helped move us away from focusing on what Cole or I wanted. Instead, we began to ask, What do You want, God?

  We really did this when we started looking for a place of our own. As much as I love my mom, there was no question that Cole, Ev, and I would move out as soon as we got married. So we prayed about what to look for. Should we have a little house or a big one? Apartment or condo? What neighborhood would our kids grow up in? We had no idea. Cole and I prayed a lot about it and discussed what we thought we should look for in a house. They say buying a house is the biggest investment you will ever make, so we didn’t want to blow this. Even though we didn’t know what we were looking for, we knew we’d figure it out together.

  Let me tell you, if you really want to get to know someone, start looking for a house together. The whole process can be super-stressful, but for us, we clicked on all the choices and decisions. When we looked at a place that I didn’t like, Cole said he didn’t like it even before I could. It was like we were the same person. If he thought something was too small, I was already thinking the same thing. If I thought something was too big and too expensive, he was always like, “Wow! That’s awesome you think that because so do I. Cool.” Our perspectives really complemented each other. Coming from a small town in Alabama made Cole want to find a neighborhood where Ev and our future kids can play outside. I wanted that as well. Both of us also wanted to find a house where we could stay for a really long time. I hesitate to say we wanted to find our forever house because you never know what God may do in the future, but that’s pretty much what we were looking for. And we looked a lot.

  We looked at apartments.

  We looked at condos.

  We looked at townhouses.

  We looked at places to rent.

  We looked at places to buy.

  We looked at places near Huntington Beach.

  We looked at places in Orange County.

  In the end we bought a house that has room for our family to grow, and I am so glad we did. One of our YouTube vlogs shows about ten minutes of us house hunting, but believe me, it took a whole lot longer. We looked at so many houses, but when we walked into the one we bought, both of us knew right away that this was the house. We just looked at each other and said, “This is it.”

  That’s pretty much how I explain our relationship to other people. It is really easy. When I am with Cole, I am with my best friend. We agree on nearly everything, and when we disagree, we talk it through, and it is really an easy conversation. Relationships like this don’t just happen. We started working on it from the start and really worked hard at it for the almost six months between our engagement and our wedding day. We still work at it, but these days it hardly feels like work at all. Neither one of us settled for just anyone, and we both put forth an effort to figure things out. We had waited to find the one God had in store for us, the one who was patient and kind and not easily angered and who doesn’t bring up stuff from the past but always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. That’s how the Bible defines love. I am so thankful I found it in Cole and he in me.

  22

  Purity

  Cole

  Savannah and I had committed our relationship to God right from the start. We also made a commitment to God and to each other to remain sexually pure until we got married. Keeping that commitment was a lot easier when I lived in Alabama. It became much more difficult when I moved into a room just down the hall from Savannah. Everleigh sleeping with Savannah every night helped. She gave us some built-in accountability. Plus, Savannah’s mom was right down the hall. Living in Savannah’s mom’s house made keeping our commitment easier than if I had my own place. If I had an apartment of my own, then Savannah and I could have spent a lot more time completely alone with no possibility of anyone walking in on us. I don’t care how committed you are to purity, if you put yourself in a position like that often enough with the one you love, you will probably slip up. That’s why I was really glad Savannah’s mom just randomly walked into the living room whenever Sav and I were alone watching a romantic movie.

  After we got engaged, I knew that the waiting time had an end date: July 9. Sort of like the day I picked to propose, we decided to get married on July 9 because it just worked. At first, I thought having an end date would make waiting easier. I was wrong. If anything, the closer we got to our wedding date, the easier it was to justify why it was okay to go ahead and have sex. After all, we were so close to getting married, and it felt like we were already since we spent all day, every day together. The commitment was there. We knew we were going to spend the rest of our lives together, so what did it matter if we slept together? I actually had these thoughts run through my mind on the really difficult days.

  On those days I had to remind myself why we were waiting. Again, like I wrote in an earlier chapter, this wasn’t just about waiting to have sex. We made a commitment to purity before God, not just in regard to sex but in everything. We didn’t make this commitment for each other. We made it for and to the Lord. People change their minds all the time. God never does. First Corinthians 6:18–20 says:

  Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

  This passage lays out the reason why Christians must stay sexually pure. Jesus died for us. He bought us with the price of His own life. When we receive Him, the Holy Spirit comes inside of us, and we become His temple. From that day forward, we are to honor God with our bodies, which means not using them to do things God says are wrong. This passage talks about honoring God by not engaging in sex outside of marriage, and that applied to us. We might have been engaged, but we weren’t married. Not yet, at least. That’s why we made a commitment to purity. Yeah, it was difficult at times. There were days we easily could have messed up. But the reason we didn’t, th
e reason why this commitment was so important to us, is because God is so important to us. We wanted to honor Him with our bodies and with our relationship.

  And it’s not like God is against sex. He created it as a gift to be enjoyed in marriage. First Corinthians 7:1–5 basically tells married couples to have a lot of sex. One book of the Bible, Song of Solomon, is essentially one big celebration of sex in marriage. All of that makes it clear that while sex outside of marriage is wrong, God blesses sex in marriage. I didn’t want to mess up this awesome gift God had waiting for Sav and me.

  Savannah

  Keeping our commitment to purity before marriage became a lot harder after Cole moved into a bedroom just down the hall from me in my mom’s house. Some nights I laid there thinking about him, knowing he was so close, and it was a real struggle. When we were in a long-distance relationship, we only had to control ourselves three or four days every two or three weeks. Once we were together nearly all day, every day, we had to work very hard to keep the boundaries we made for ourselves to protect us from slipping up. The closer we got to our wedding day, the more difficult it was to wait.

  I’m going to be honest with you, and Cole will say the same thing: Making a commitment like this is easy. Keeping it is difficult, but it is worth it 1,000 percent. However, you can’t just rely on willpower and self-control. I’ve talked to so many girls who feel overwhelmed with guilt for breaking a commitment to purity. They didn’t intend to, but things just got out of hand with their boyfriends, and they made decisions in the heat of the moment they immediately regretted. Cole and I were determined not to let that happen to us.

  So how do you keep a commitment to purity when your boyfriend lives in the same house as you? First, we worked really hard to put Jesus first in everything. I know we’ve said this before, but it needs to be said again and again and again. Our decision not to have sex before we got married came out of our desire to live for Jesus in every part of our lives. I’d been down the other road. I know what happens to relationships and what happens to my own life when I push God aside and do what I want to do. I never want to go back to that. I want Him always to have first place in everything.