Mullet, Marriage, & Jesus
January 1, 2015 I became the Youth Pastor at then Lighthouse Fellowship, now Journey Church. It was an awesome moment to be leading the youth group that I grew up in. If you knew me at the time I was all about The House Youth! I felt that I was ready to go, but hindsight I look back going…I wasn’t nearly as ready as I thought I was in the moment. That is a story for another day, but regardless, first thing on the list done! Next up, finding me a wife!
This one didn’t happen like I wanted…year by year passed and nothing. If I’m being honest the idea of getting married by 23 was in every conversation about myself, every prayer time I had, every fast I did, everything. Now there is nothing wrong with praying for a future spouse, but there is an unhealthy aspect where that becomes more of your focus than the Lord…and that is a place I found myself for a while. 23 came and went and still single. Year after year the prayer was the same.
During this time I didn’t date anyone. Many people told me that I’d never get married or have a girlfriend unless I was willing to meet someone, or take someone out. But that just wasn’t me…nor was that what I was praying for. My prayer was that I wouldn’t have to date all these girls to find the one. That the Lord would bring her to me. Now there were girls that came along that I had interest in, but another prayer I had was slam the door on the wrong ones and make the way easy for the right one. I was very specific about my prayer and I believed that it was going to happen that way, and let me tell you…there were some doors that got slammed hard in my face and I was devastated. Like…Lord are you sure she ain’t it? But I trusted in Him.
Something I was not willing to change was me. I watched as friends would get into a relationship and everything about them would change to match who they were dating. I never liked that. I also didn’t like when that change was forced upon them by the female. I wanted someone to loved me for being me! So what my style is ridiculous, so what I can be crazy at times, so what I tell terrible jokes…this is me. This is Jack VanDouser and if you can’t accept that then you don’t deserve me. Obviously there are areas in my life that needed to change like responsibility, maturity, etc… We all need to grow these areas and that is part of life. But Who I Am was not changing.
I mentioned earlier that there were girls that did enter my life that I had interest in and there were quite a few who had interest in me that I did not necessarily feel the same for. I didn’t hate them and knew most of them did like me, but I tried my best to treat them with respect. Growing up as a Pastor’s kid this was nothing new to me. Every new family that came to the church with a daughter my age, our parents would say that we are getting married. (It wasn’t that bad, but it did happen a decent amount of times) Im so thankful that arranged marriages are not a thing in the states because I’d have like 30 wives right now. I share this because the idea of pairing me with someone bothered me. The older I got the more I continued to dislike it. I told myself that when I get married I would never do that to other single guys or girls. (I do believe that I have so far lived up to that promise. If I haven’t, I am so sorry.) This didn’t line up with my prayer…you are not God, you are not bringing her to me, so please stop. There were a few instances that I heard, “God told me” either from another person, or from a female. For me this was an automatic door being shut. Im going to say this here, keep it to yourself and let the Lord do his thing…because all of those people were wrong. The last person to mention something on the the lines of, “God told/God showed me” was confirmation of a door being shut that I had struggled with for a long time.
I do want to say this though…I did have one lady I respect come up to me and share something she felt the Lord wanted me to know. She said, “I see this image of a girl. I see her outline but not who she is. All I know is God is preparing her. Jack, you are ready and where God wants you…but she isn’t quite there yet. And even when y’all get together there will still be a lot of growth that needs to take place, but you’ll get to be there for it.”
Fast forward to 2019…
At this point I am 25 years old and still single, but something had begun shifting in me. I finally reached a point where I wasn’t going to let my singleness and lack of spouse be a priority in my life. I decided that I am truly trusting in God to bring her and I was fully dedicating my focus on the Lord. Once this transition in my thinking and my life took place something crazy happened…about a month or two went by and this girl with pink hair at church caught my attention. Here’s the thing, she wasn’t a first time guest. She had been coming to the church for about a year and a half. She was someone who had been in the same young adult group as me for the past year. Her name was Katelyn Toebbe, but everyone called her Katie. I’d see her plenty of times over the last year and a half…but this time something was different. Maybe I just hadn’t taken the time to really pause and get to know her, but she was an incredible person. On top of that she was beautiful and she had pink hair. My favorite color is pink and growing up I always thought it would be awesome to have a wife with pink hair, but that would never happen. You know, them church girls don’t have pink hair…but here we are and this girl who loves Jesus has pink hair.
So being the stud I was I got her number from the group chat and started to text her haha! What started as texting here and there became texting everyday. This led to us having conversations at church and YA outings more than just “Hey!”. Looking back I shared that for me to be texting her was a big deal! I never just texted females like that. She just thought I was being nice and very friendly haha! {Pause}
There was another HUGE thing happening in my life around this time…I decided to grow out a Mullet! I had come to the point I wasn’t concerned with getting married so why not grow out this mullet I’ve talked about for a while. I mean everyone told me I was crazy and I would for sure never get married with a mullet, but I wasn’t doing any better without one so… I stopped cutting the back of my hair in June of 2019. {Un-Pause}
So me and Katie had begun to talk more and more but we weren’t dating at the time. Then a moment came to make a move. As a youth pastor I go to students sporting events and a particular set of siblings were playing softball one night. Katie played and loved softball/baseball growing up and had a good relationship with the sisters that were playing so I invited her to ride with me to the game. She said yes and later that night we headed up there together. On the way home I asked if she wanted to get some dinner, to which she said yes again! We had an awesome time of hanging out and getting to know each other more. But here was the best part…it was Easy. The feeling I normally got when trying to talk to someone I had interest in would stress me to the max, but being with Katie was not like that at all. I was able to look her in the eyes and just talk and be me. I liked that feeling and I liked the one I got to share that feeling with. A couple weeks later we went on our first official date! Thursday, October 10th 2019. It was meant to be at night but the revival we were in at church got extended and Katie happened to be off that day! So that morning we went to Pei Wei for lunch, followed up by a corn maze in the Memphis Muggy Heat, then we headed to an Antique store, and finished up by going to the church for Revival. It is a day I will never forget!
Not long after this “official statement” of dating, I looked at Katie and told her that I was growing a mullet (which she knew). I had cut the sides of my head for the first time earlier that day and it looked rough. I told her that if she didn’t like the mullet I would go and cut it the next day. We were walking in Walmart when I said this after passing a mirror and seeing myself. She looked and me and said, “If I can have pink hair, you can have a mullet.” My heart went wild! She didn’t want me to change who I was, even if it meant having a mullet. She didn’t care about my appearance, she cared about me…Jack. This was what I had been praying for.
Fast forward a year to October 10, 2020. Me and Katie had now been talking for over a year and dating for exactly a year but I had known for a while that she was the one I wanted to marry, she was the one the Lord was bringing! So I took my Trump Bucks I got via Covid and bought a ring! That night we recreated as much as our first date we could. We ate at Pei Wei then went to the same antique store. Instead of going to the church, we went back to her house. While there I decided this was the place I wanted to propose…just us two. {Pause}
To understand this moment you have to know this. In the year we dated I never once told Katie I loved her. When I was in middle school Tommy George spoke one time about how flippantly we tell others we love them. That in doing so the meaning is watered down, its impact isn’t nearly as powerful. So as I middle school student I told myself I would never tell a female I loved her until I knew she was the one. This is something I made very clear to Katie when we started dating. {Un-Pause}
So here I am standing in the living room freaking out because I am about to ask Katie to marry me. I looked at her and said some words I don’t remember but then I said, “Katelyn Elizabeth Toebbe I Love You!” And before she could fully grasp that moment I hit her with another moment that would take her a moment to fully grasp. I dropped down to one knee and asked her to marry me. For the next 30 mins to and hour after saying yes she sat there quietly with a big grin on her face. Two and a half months later we got married on January 2, 2021. On the inside of my wedding ring there is something inscribed. It simply says, “My Favorite Mullet” A constant reminder that God heard and answered my prayers!
As of the posting of this, it is January 2, 2024 and we are celebrating our 3rd Anniversary! Things are much different than they were 3 years ago. Today we have a 16 month old girl named Rose Aubrey and she is absolutely beautiful and another answer to a prayer from many years. But as of that post High School dream I can now say every box is checked. I am a youth pastor, I am married, I have a child, and Rose is growing up around the youth and they love her. It is truly incredible to be walking in the very things Ive spent the last 11 years praying for. I would be remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to encourage the one reading this who is still waiting for the answer to their own prayer. It doesn’t have to be about getting married, but it may be the salvation of a loved one, a prodigal to come home, direction for the future, wisdom in the midst of a difficult situation, whatever it may be…trust in the Lord. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” Proverbs 3:5-6. I haven’t lived a long life, but I have lived long enough to know that the Lord is faithful to His Word and can truly be trusted.
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Now I want to take some more time to talk about Katie, more importantly about 2023 Katie. This past year has been a huge one for her! One that has caused her to stretch herself more than she ever has in her life. There were lots of tears this year from Katie and there were a lot of frustrating moments for Jack. Here’s the thing about Katie…she grew up going to church every once in a while and was apart of a youth group in her teenage years, but there was still a lot about God she was still learning when we started dating. Here’s another thing, Katie is an over thinker and that overthinking can often lead her to think she isn’t good enough to do something. That she lacks the ability to do it. This is crazy and hard for me to understand because when I see Katie I see a smart, strong, creative women who can do whatever she puts her mind to! I see things in her that she sometimes doesn’t see in herself. So when she overthinks I get frustrated because I know she can! She just can’t see it yet. [ I wonder if the Father ever does that with us. When we think we lack He looks at us and wants us to see ourselves as He sees us!}
On January 2, 2021 Katie didn’t just get married, she became a youth pastor too. In getting married to a pastor there are certain expectations that people assume about you. You know how to pray over others, you can stand on a stage and preach, you are the go to for all things spiritual, you have a vast knowledge of the Bible, and the list goes on. Katie was still learning and growing in many aspects of her relationship with the Lord when we got married, yet the weight of that was on her. Those first two of years this was something she fought with. At the time there were only 3 girls in the youth group and she took it personally that more weren’t coming. But in the process she was hearing from God and He was changing/stretching her. She also made it a point to pray for the girls of Journey church to see the group grow. So this leads me back to 2023 Katie. She started the year in February with going out of the country for the first time. Me, Katie and 6 month old Rose took a trip down to Colombia, South America. A few months later she led a break out group for the youth girls at the Women’s Conference hosted at the church. Fast forward to Camp during the summer and I watched as my wife prayed over students and boldly spoke over individuals and the group as a whole that which the Lord was telling her. Later she opened a booth for the first time with all of her paintings, jewelry, and crafts. Then in the fall she left the country again, this time on her first missions trip. Our youth group took a missions trip down to Costa Rica. Then in December she preached her first message to the youth! And by the way…today we have over 35 girls that call JRNY Youth their home!
I love using words and writing about my thoughts, and I have tried my best to show just a tiny piece of how proud I am of my wife! I often tell her that God didn’t just give me what I wanted, he gave me what I needed when He gave me her. Katelyn Elizabeth VanDouser I Love You and I am so proud of you! Out of all the women in the world there is no one else I would want to raise Rose with than you! I’ve always known I was going to have a daughter, and I am so thankful that she gets to grow up watching such and incredible woman like you! She may be young now, but she is getting to watch her mom grow in the Lord and face challenges head on, not run away from them. Why? Because that’s that type of person you are. You pay attention to detail and strive for perfection. You are a woman full of the Joy of the Lord. You are my proverbs 31 woman.
One more time and I promise I’m done…Love You and Happy Anniversary Katie!
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