Our Story

Ben’s Perspective

I fell in love with Grace on the page before I ever met her in person.  She wrote a poignant piece for National Review shortly after Tim Keller died in the spring of 2023.  Keller was a Christian theologian, apologist, pastor, and founder of our home church, Redeemer Presbyterian.  He was the man who had brought me to faith just a few years before.  Grace’s piece was part eulogy, part testimony of her own intellectual wrestling match with the God of Jacob.  I learned that she had been inquiring of the same God, mediated by the same man, contending with the same arguments as me, at the very same time.  We were on parallel paths.

Her writing had a cadence to it—a musicality—that felt deeply familiar; it felt true.  I thought, Who was this person, whose story mirrored mine?  We must run in the same circles.  I didn’t know her, but I wanted to.

That spring, I was itching to leave New York.  Restless, I scattershot applications to law firms in D.C., but they all ricocheted off glass doors and hit the concrete.  I soon had a strong intuition (a prompting, even) that I was meant to stay in New York.  To stay rooted, build a community, build a home.

So I applied for the Gotham Fellowship, a nine-month discipleship program run by Redeemer’s Center for Faith and Work.  It would start in September 2023 and involve weekly discussions, extensive readings in theology, and several retreats, ending in May 2024.  It was, to understate, a commitment.  I didn’t know how I would balance Gotham with my all-consuming job at a large litigation firm, but I knew I had to do it.  I was all in.

Our Gotham cohort had ten fellows, led by the inimitable Jeff White (now our officiant), plus some TA, who would remain shrouded in mystery.  We had our first retreat in Princeton, NJ, where we were left to lead ourselves.  Our TA was MIA, and I believe Jeff was off marrying some other couple somewhere.  But the rest of us got very close, very quickly.  We shared our testimonies, sketched out our stories; we were vulnerable before each other and before the Lord.  Only then did we grasp what we were in for.

The next meeting, our TA finally showed.  She was one Grace Bydalek, whom I had met on the page four months before.  She was like a character in a novel I had on my shelf, but had only read the inner flap.  And there she was, in the flesh; she stepped into my world.

And we talked.  And we talked—and my, did we talk.  We talked, the twelve of us, for nine months straight, it seemed.  Grace was a devoted TA.  She hosted wine nights at her (soon to be our) tasteful apartment on the Upper West Side.  She invited each of us to coffee, one-on-one, to hear our stories.

Our coffee was not a date, but it had the faint hue of one.  I was nervous and a little unkempt.  We walked along the Brooklyn Heights promenade and talked about faith, beauty, and the late Sir Roger Scruton.  I learned that Grace saw the world exactly as I did, in every way that mattered.  We were tip-of-the-bell-curve compatible.  But it was more than that; there was something in the lilt of conversation–a kind of effortless verbal intimacy that I had never felt with anyone before.

At the end of our walk, a girl who was looking for the subway addressed us as if we were a couple, and neither of us corrected her.  She must have sensed what we couldn’t yet say.  They got on the train together, and the girl asked Grace, “Was that a date?”  Grace demurred, and the prophetess spoke a certain truth: “He’s into you.”

I was captivated, but cautious.  I feared I might spoil things if I said my piece too soon.  So I held my tongue, kept my powder dry.  But as the months wore on, my first impressions crystallized, and my attraction deepened.  I used to practice my lines before Gotham—weaving in references to Edmund Burke and British gardens that I knew would get Grace’s attention.  (She has peculiar tastes.)  When our discussions got contentious, Grace and I were always on the same team.  I once said to her, cryptically: “Audience of one.”

In January, I went to her birthday party and stayed to the end.  She asked us to bring a work of art we cherished, so I read my favorite Coleridge poem, “Dejection: An Ode.”  I chose a wall to lean against and mostly didn’t move—didn’t dare to dream that someday her home might also be mine.  “Till that which suits a part infects the whole, / And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.”

Almost grown.  In March, I asked Grace to drinks.  No explanation, no agenda—just to chat, fellow and TA.  A date?  No.  Well, I was tactically ambiguous.  I took her to a bar I like downtown.  We talked about our families.  She described her father as “a lawyer with the heart of a theologian.”  I said I hoped I would get to meet him someday; she said he and I would get along.

But when we said goodbye, I had convinced myself that I had to let her go.  I had no idea if she would be with me if I asked her to.  Plus, I was crushed at work, and leaving for Michigan in a matter of months.  Had I waited too long?

Suddenly, all my work ceased.  One case settled; another was dismissed—pencils down.  The timing was providential.  It was Jesus saying to the tempest, “Peace, be still.”  And my upcoming clerkship meant I couldn’t take on any new matters.  I was left with nothing but time, and I had run out of excuses.

So I stepped out in faith:  I asked Grace to see Doubt on Broadway (which is ironic in hindsight, given my certainty).  My pretext was that she had been a culture writer for the New York Sun, and I was in desperate need of a critic.  We were both dressed for a date, but we hadn’t acknowledged it yet.  I wore a navy suit, no tie; she wore a black-and-pink floral top and jeans.  The production was fine, but our post-show drinks were the main event.

I led her to a quiet tavern on 46th Street.  She ordered a whiskey, and I followed suit.  On whiskey one, we left theater criticism and moved on to career ambitions, community, and calling.  By whiskey two, I had steered the conversation to the qualities Grace looked for in a romantic partner.  And near the bottom of the glass, I said (as I had practiced), “Grace, you know we’re compatible in all those ways.”

So that’s how it came to be that we fell in love, as we say, between whiskeys two and three.  At least, that’s when I knew.  As soon as the door was open, I was certain I had been called to walk through.  At the end of the night, while we were walking to the train, I said, “Every evening we should ask ourselves, ‘How did this evening change my life?’  As for this one, I suppose we’ll see.”

Well, see us now.  I could recite every detail of our early dates, but suffice it to say that we spent every second we could together until August 4, 2024–the day I moved to Ann Arbor to start my clerkship.  On August 3, we met with Grace’s friend Briar, who designed our engagement ring (more on that below).  We flew back and forth so often, some of our NY acquaintances didn’t know I had ever left.  Since whiskey two, I haven’t felt a flicker of doubt–just the steady certainty (the still small voice) that accompanies a divine call.  May that call never go unanswered.