Welcome
We are Mark and Traci Neyland, building on what God calls a “great mystery” (Ephesians 5:32) — the parallel between tangible and eternal Romance.
When a man pursues his bride (a woman) as the Lord Jesus Christ pursues His Bride (us), the tangible embodies the eternal as the eternal empowers the tangible.
Our book the Beautiful Parallel unveils this “great mystery” behind true Romance.
The five beautiful stages of eternal Romance comprise the blueprints that a man and woman need to build a relationship that prevails against the enemies of Romance:
His Love
is the Source of Romance, that pursues Her Trust by making the first move to prove to her how exclusively valuable she is to him.
Her Trust
is the Potential for Romance, because only Her Trust allows for the sincere exchange of Intimate Talk.
Intimate Talk
is the Life of Romance, where the ongoing sharing of secret hopes and dreams intertwines them with an internal Cohesion.
Cohesion
is the Strength of Romance, deeply infused enough to keep a Marriage intact.
Marriage
is the Fulfillment of Romance, when their inward oneness consummates into their own outward oneness; to dance unashamedly, freely, joyfully, without reservation.
The story of how we met involves God syncing the lives of two faraway strangers.
I was reading His Word and the parable of a man’s search for a precious pearl (Matthew 13:46) when God told me to relocate from Seattle to pursue my own pearl at a certain church in San Antonio.
So, on September 10, 2000, I packed my car to pursue a perfect stranger.
Soon afterwards, I noticed her, and was freight-train struck with her beauty, and completely won over by her kindness toward others.
As the first hour of conversation grew into several, she showed me a one-time prayer-letter she had written, to express her heart’s desire — for God to send her the right man.
The date she had penned on her letter turned out to be the very same day I was packing my car, from over 2,000 miles away, for the road trip that would change our lives forever.
On December 22, 2001, I married the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
God has given us two precocious boys and a profoundly articulate girl who amaze us with who they are, and give us new reasons to appreciate morning coffee.
Any family is a happier crew when the man and woman build on what God calls the “great mystery.”
We call it the Beautiful Parallel.