Liz Schauer

I have been engaged for over a month to the most incredible men I have ever met, but I have some breaking news: My fiancé doesn’t complete me. He never has—and that magical moment where he got down on one knee in the hollow base of a 200-foot Redwood tree in the middle of California and opened up a small navy box containing a stunning ring and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him did not change that.

It is a moment that I will remember for the rest of my life, but he did not transform into Tom Cruise (although, like Tom, Jake does have great hair), and the score did not crescendo and the credits did not roll.

I can, however, echo Renee’s sentiment that he had me at hello.

On Sunday, May 3, 2015, a handsome man I had seen a handful of times walked up to the information booth I was manning. I asked if he needed help, and he simply replied, “Hello! Nope, I just wanted to meet you.” While those are the first words that were exchanged between us, I believe that it is as close to “complete” as our relationship will ever be.

Jake wanted to meet me on that day, and he has met me every day since. He met me in June, when I was leading a group of altitude-sick teenagers in Bolivia in by sending words of encouragement and prayer. He met me in July, when we hiked a mountain in Seattle in and the nerves to impress his sister inspired each step. He met me in August, when I was seeking affirmation in our relationship, coming to surrender to the fact that we did not know if we were “supposed to get married.” He met me in the fall, when I changed jobs and dove into a whirlwind of newness. He met me in the winter, when we navigated family complexities through the holidays. He met me in January, when we felt God leading us toward marriage and I shared my fears that stem from a history of divorce. He met me in February, as we walked through a pre-martial workbook, digging into our stories, our desires, our insecurities, our pain, and our differences.

He has sought to meet me, to see me, to love me, to encourage me, to support me, but never to complete me, and that has been the greatest gift to our relationship.

Jake is wonderful, but Jake is not Jesus, and he does not try to be. He simply seeks to be like Jesus—to love like Jesus, to sacrifice like Jesus, to have grace like Jesus. He will fail, he cannot read my mind (as much as I tend to hope for that), he will not always say the right thing, he will not always know how to respond, and I am so grateful for that, because I fail, I miss chances, I don’t know what to say at times, and I don’t know what he needs.

Each time I find myself seeking to be completed by Jake, I am disappointed, not because of who he is, simply because he was never created to complete me. When I don’t feel pretty enough or good enough or smart enough or desired enough, there is a part of me that reaches for Jake. I reach for his words, I seek them out, I dig for compliments, and he gives them, but it never feels like enough, and even though I know he means every word, the identity of my soul is made to be written by the Word of life.

God said: My grace is sufficient for you; my power is made perfect in your weakness.

As much as I’d like to edit that verse, Jake’s name is nowhere to be found. When it comes down to my soul, it’s me and God. My weakness, my insecurity, my pain—His power, His words, His healing. Desiring that another person meet all those needs places a yoke of expectation on them that we were never meant to carry. In seeking to meet one other rather than complete one another, grace abounds.

I want to approach my relationship with the mindset of meeting Jake, seeing him, loving him, praying for him, and encouraging him to find his footing in Jesus. I don’t want to seek completion from him, because I know all too well that I cannot provide that for him. There is enough pressure in this world to be perfect—it is exhausting when that carries into your closest relationships.

John said: If you love one another, God’s love lives in us and is made complete through us.

It is in that gap of our imperfect desire to love one another that the grace of Jesus is found. There is power when you step out, scared and scarred, messy and mistake-ridden, and allow someone to love every part of you.

So to my dear fiancé: I will love you with all of the imperfectness of my soul for all the days of my life, and I will allow God’s light to shine through my broken pieces. Please know this: You do not complete me, and I hope you are forever freed from that pressure. Thank you for meeting me—both on May 3, 2015, and every day since. You have relentlessly sought to understand, to love, and to point me to God. You have never tried to take the place of Jesus in my life, but you have carried His presence and His redemptive power into my life, and that is a gift I deeply cherish. As much as I want to be perfect, I never will be, but I have seen the love of God become complete in the grace that exists between us in the gap between who we are and who He has created us to be. My prayer is that you would come to know the depths of God’s love more each day, that you continue to shed the light of Christ everywhere you go, and that I would be used to speak of God’s unfailing love, grace, freedom, and healing into the most broken parts of who you are—I love all the pieces of you. May we continue to meet each other in new ways through each season that lies ahead.