our love story

Allow me to share with you my love story – for me, the greatest title I’ll ever wear will be the one with the title “WIFEY”, and the other (I pray one day – God willing) will be titled “MOM”. I never grew up as a little girl dreaming of all the colors of my future wedding nor did I have my wedding dress already picked out from a young age. Needless to say, I DID end up having the most beautiful dream wedding and I wouldn’t change anything about that amazing day (wedding picture below). Although I never dreamt of the wedding itself, I did always dream of being a WIFEY one day. I dreamt of having a best friend, a partner, someone that I could rock this life with, and someone that would accept me for ALL of me…EVEN my crazy side (the side I tried to pretend that only other girls had but of course not me haha). I love Marilyn Monroe quotes. One of my favorite quotes of hers is “if you can’t love me at my worst, then you don’t deserve me at my best”. And boy is that true…I dreamt of a man that would love me for me as I have so many unique qualities to offer and will strive on a daily basis to be the best wifey I can be for my man. However, I have a crazy mind that is guilty of letting my thoughts run wild (ladies, you know what I’m talking about here haha). My husband always tells me that he wishes he could be in the center action of my brain, because I come up with some wild and crazy stories up in there (HA, I can’t help it). Thankfully, he loves me for all my best, as well as all that crazy at my worst.

I married my teammate just this past year on December 2^nd, 2017 in Austin, Texas (the city we met, fell in love, and got engaged). We had a mini-moon to Napa Valley shortly after the wedding tasting all our favorite wines, and then we just had our big vacation honeymoon (picture above of us on the beach) in Kauai, Hawaii. He proposed to me after 94 days of being my boyfriend…(He proposed downtown in front of the Austin Capitol and hired a photographer hiding behind a tree to capture this moment – took me by total surpise)(our wedding day picture – right after we said I DO – I married a STUD) (Our mini-moon to Napa Valley shortly after our wedding. Wine, wine, and more wine)

So allow me to introduce you to my husband Nick – the rarest, nicest, most ambitious, most loyal, most out of this world committed man –

• He’s RARE. Ladies, he’s a true gentleman. He opens my car door. He dates me and romances me by taking me on dates often and he writes me love letters daily. He called my father not only to ask for my hand in marriage, but to ALSO ask permission to date shortly after we met. Who does that? Old school rare gentlemen. Yes, they DO EXIST.
• He’s the NICEST guy I have ever met. I am super close to my family, and when I first met my husband and would tell my family or anyone about this man I was seeing, all I kept saying was he is SO NICE. The NICEST guy. And everyone who met him could say the same thing.
• He’s ridiculously AMBITIOUS. I say ridiculously in a good way. When we were just friends, he always worked hard as I would see him working weekends and holidays…he also has a steller education by graduate school, and spends 3 hours a day reading simply to educate himself. And now that he has a wifey, his ambition is on another level…he inspires me daily just watching the way he is always learning and teaching himself. I admire all his goals and look up to his hard work and ambition.
• He is beyond LOYAL. He’s loyal to all he comes in contact with – his friends, his work, and his family. He’s a man of his word that you can count on for anything. When he says he is going to do something, he actually follows up and does it. His loyalty to me and our marriage come before anything else. Although he is ambitious and values his work, his loyalty to us is the most important thing.
• He is the most out of this world COMMITTED man. And this ladies, I find extremely rare. I feel dating is so complicated and hard in the society we live in today. It’s so easy for a man to cut off his commitment one day and then swipe right, and be onto a new girl all in the same day. It’s much easier for men to be single, then it is for them to stick with it and stay committed through all the highs and lows. My man is all in, and committed no matter what.

I feel blessed to have a man like I do. But let me first start of by saying, I didn’t just stumble across my husband, and we by all means are not perfect. I went through many lonely nights, many wrong choices, many hurtful encounters, and many self sabotaging moments where I had to work on myself long before I met my husband.

But something changed my life forever and shifted in me when my older brother was weeks away from dying back in 2013. He was battling a rare form of cancer at an age that no one should be suffering at the level he did. And sadly, we lost him way too soon after a short 7 month battle. Weeks before he died, we shared some really cool conversations together. He encouraged me and told me that he knows I’ll find someone some day, someone that is a man after God’s own heart and that would pursue me, the way God designed it. He told me that everyday I choose to live my life is the type of life and man I am going to attract.

I told my brother that I was angry with his “God” and that his God would allow this to happen. Why wouldn’t he take me instead? I was single with no spouse like him, I had no job at the time, and I had no kids that were going to grow up with no father like his 2 little boys (my nephews) were about to do. If this “God” existed, why would he allow this to happen? I told him I felt God was rude and punishing us and our family for no reason. At this point, tears are streaming down my face as I was angry and hurt that God was taking away such a perfect man and it wasn’t fair.

My brother asked me to sit next to him and he put his arm around me and he said “God didn’t give me this cancer Leash. It’s the sins of this world, it’s the falling of man (ie: Adam and Eve), and that is what brought disease into this world to allow cancer to exist.” He then told me that “God is for us, and not against us, and that God cries with him every single night, and is sorry to see him go through what he’s going through and that God loves him very much,” He quoted a scripture verse “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood (ie cancer in this case), but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12. He said that there is a whole other world of battle out there (spiritual battle), and we have the best leader of all – God — and God is on OUR side.

My brother also told me that God promised him that he would take care of his wife and two boys he was leaving behind and God always fulfills his promises. Whoa. A young 33 year old man who had his entire life ahead of him, with an amazing career (that would end up going public and selling for millions after he died), to a beautiful wife and two beautiful children, a family who loved him, and friends that absolutely admired him, who was about to die suffering in intense pain, and had to say goodbye to the life he built and the dreams that he would never be able to fulfill, was telling ME to not be mad at God and that God is a loving, caring God who is on our team? That conversation changed my life, and that is the day I embarked on a journey to seeking this God…the loving, compassionate God my brother spoke so highly of. I sought God, I found God, and I never looked back. And I’ll be sharing many of those experiences and insights with you through out this blog.

So how did I meet my husband? I met him through mutual friends in the financial industry that my husband and I were both in at the time. I certainly do NOT have the answer to finding a husband (for those of you desiring one). But I will tell you a few things I did prior to meeting my man before my love story began.

1. I EMBRACED being single. I made reading a habit when I started on this new journey of mine. I used to think reading was for dorks ha its true (sorry to all you book lovers out there). When people used to say that their hobby was reading, I used to scream BORRRINGGGG. However, I turned into a serious self help junkie and now I absolutely love reading books on this topic. I feel like every book out there as a single gal was about how to overcome your past or a bad breakup OR how to find a man and get him to like you, fall in love with you, and never leave you. But there was NOTHING available on how to embrace being single. I never discovered any information on how to enjoy the now and enjoy the singlehood. I felt so many of my friends were focused on being sad about that guy that didn’t ever text them back or be anxious about finding their future husband. For me, I totally EMBRACED the single life. For most people, their single life is just a short period of their life due to the fact that , you have your entire life to be married, but only a SHORT window to be single. So why not enjoy the crap out of it. I enjoyed eating whatever I wanted to eat, sleep whenever I wanted to, travel wherever I wanted to…and not have to care about the well being of anyone else but my own. It sounds selfish, right? Yup. I chose to embrace it. Cnce you do meet your partner, it’s not about just you anymore, as you have somebody else’s life and heart to take care of. So I embraced that part of my life and wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. I encourage you ladies who are single to do the same. My favorite book series I read when I was single was by a gal named Mandy Hale and her book is called “The Single Woman”. I highly recommend.
2. I LET GO, and I LET GOD. Philippians 4:6-7 says: “Don’t be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace that surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” When my brother passed away, no matter how many well known doctors we brought him to, or how many prayers my family prayed, or how many times he went to chemotherapy, the results were OUT OF OUR HANDS. We had no control nor did the doctors. God had a plan and has a plan for everything. Just as the scripture says…’present your requests to God, and the PEACE that surpasses all understanding (ie MY understanding of how I wanted things to go and how I thought they should be). Ladies, focus on the word PEACE. Do you worry, stress, or think about finding your man? Are you with the wrong man or know you are settling with the one you are not supposed to be with? LET GO and LET GOD take over. “Present your requests to God” and then LET IT GO and be consumed with PEACE that surpasses what you think is best for you. What WE think is best for us may not be HIS best for us. And trusting HIS best, provides PEACE and security knowing it’s under control by God. I feel like it was that moment I truly let go and trusted, that I allowed God to prepare my heart. As a result, God brought my husband to me.
3. I got CLEAR and SPECIFIC on what I wanted in a partner. Some people might be told they are “too picky”…and lets be real, some of you wish you could draw your perfect man up on a sheet of paper, and then poof, he comes to life jumping off the paper. There is nothing wrong with knowing what you want and being clear and specific in what you want in a lifelong partner. Afterall, you are choosing to spend the REST OF YOUR LIFE with that person. But you also need to be realistic. For me, I decided to focus on just 10 specific yet clear things I wanted and didn’t want in a partner. I wrote out a list about a month before I started dating my husband. I still have the list. On the left side of a sheet of the paper, I wrote 10 things I “must have” in a partner and 10 things I “can’t stand”. I realized I can’t find what I’m looking for if I don’t even have the basic things I want or can’t stand living with. And this will look different for every gal. So I encourage you to sit down with yourself and get real with what it is YOU would like in a partner, and write down those things you can’t stand. It helps you get focused and aligned with your desires. I’ve seen some gals that end up “settling” and with someone that they can’t stand being with and they don’t know why. And there may be many reasons for that, but some of that could be they didn’t even know what they wanted in the first place. Get CLEAR!(this is the clear and specific list I wrote a month before I met my husband)
4. I was OPEN. Be open to that guy that might not be “your type”. This can be from the color of his hair, to his ethnicity, to his hobbies, or the profession you want him to be or not be in. I didn’t even look my husband’s way at first because he was working in my industry. As silly as that sounds, I refused to date anyone in the financial industry because the guys in the industry are not the most respectable guys. Furthermore, the industry is such a small industry. As a women in the industry, I had built a good reputation for myself. With that being said, I refused to date anyone associated with my career. Welp, now I’m married to one ha! I’ll never forgot one of my dear friends talking to me about my husband who I had just started dating at the time, saying how he seems like such an amazing guy, and me saying oh NOO, it won’t happen, he’s in my industry, and she stared at me blankly and said “so what? Give it a try”. I had also heard from countless friends and colleagues how my he is such a great guy and I should “go for him”. Can you imagine if I wasn’t OPEN because I “refused” to date anyone in the financial industry? I encourage you to be open to who shows up in your life.
5. I got out of my own way. Self-sabotage. YUP! We have all been there. Perhaps we don’t feel worthy enough or we feel ashamed of our past that we don’t feel we deserve an amazing relationship. Or perhaps you have just been hurt and the pain is so memorable that you refuse to feel that pain again. So you self-sabotage things right when they begin to get too serious or when you meet someone you see potential with because you are so afraid of feeling that pain all over again. But sister, you are SO WORTHY of being happy and you’ll never experience that love again if you sabotage it everytime. Relationships bring out things in your life that you may have not even known you had and that’s because relationships cause you to become REAL. Be real with the partner you are with and real with yourself and that may bring up things that you are not ready to face. I had to get out of my own way and this started the moment I started dating my husband and things were moving super fast. I met a guy that seemed “too good to be true”. Things were “too perfect” that I didn’t think it could be real. I didn’t think I deserved that kind of man. But oh ladies, we SO deserve the best. I respect my husband so much because he was SO authentic to me from day 1. He just gave me his heart and we got serious SO fast that I was scared to death and tried running away so many times. I tried self-sabotaging the best thing that ever happened to me. My husband says I broke up with him weekly and I tried running away (which I totally did) and now that I think about it, I still do sometimes ha! Everybody wants happiness, nobody wants pain, but you can’t have a rainbow without a little rain. I had to go get out of my own way, and work through my fears to get to where I am now. I encourage you to get out of your own way.

Thank you for letting me share my love story and life with you. Hopefully I can sprinkle some wisdom on many different topics that are near and dear to me that I have learned that motivates and encourages you in your own unique journey.

XoXo,

Alisha