Kristin Bennett believes meeting Blaine Berkley is a “God thing.” The two 30-somethings are depending on Him to open doors, starting with the right job for Berkley.

“I certainly wasn’t looking for a man from Minnesota,” she said, “but here he is.”

They met on an online dating website. She had her search radius set for local. Berkley said he kept going back and forth between the local setting and the entire U.S. for his search radius. He likes to travel, and has done a good bit of it, he said. He also has his pilot’s license and a business degree. What he doesn’t have are forearms.

Currently a material handler for Boston Scientific, he was born with a rare genetic disorder, thrombocytopenia with absent radius syndrome, a birth defect marked by the absence of the radius in each arm and a shortage of blood cells involved in clotting. He was also born with crooked legs which have been straightened by surgeries.

“The internal bleeding, that’s gotten better with age,” he said. “My blood clots just fine now. Platelets are a little low but I’m fine. I don’t really have a functioning wrist but I’m pretty much able to do anything.”

On a day that he was casting a wider net, he saw Bennett’s profile and thought she was “pretty cute.”

“I was looking for a single Christian woman that was shorter than me, and she checked all the boxes,” he said, getting up from his chair during the interview and going over to her wheelchair and standing behind it, using his arms and hands to mark the difference in height and laughing.

Bennett was born perfectly healthy. Seven months later, her mother noticed the right side of her baby’s body seemed to be paralyzed. They visited the pediatrician and found out Bennett had an astrocytoma, a spinal cord tumor. A surgery was scheduled right away to remove it, and it grew back. It grew back again after the second and third surgery.

“That’s why I am paralyzed,”she said.

At 22 she had a partial glossectomy after she was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue, which spread into her lymph nodes. She has been in remission for 12 years. However, when lymph nodes are removed, it does affect the immune system. She developed a respiratory illness and her doctor told her to quit her job as a preschool teacher at First Baptist Preschool Academy.

“That was heartbreaking,” she said, “because I loved my job, and I’m a  people person, so to be shut in my house for two years basically.”

“But it has improved your health,” Berkley interjected.

It also is what led to her using an online dating website and meeting her man from Minnesota.

“I was always going and doing before,” she said. “You try to meet people but it’s hard. I don’t want to say some of them just see the chair, but the chair and the complications…. I understand it, I do.

Berkley could tell she was in a wheelchair when he saw her profile picture. That didn’t discourage him, but the fact that she was from Louisiana – too far away – did. Then he decided he was going to “give it a chance” and left her the message: If you want to just talk, just chat, I’m open to that.

She did.

“It started slow. With each conversation, we discovered we had more and more in common, we thought the same way about certain things, had the same morals and values, and it just kind of snowballed,” he said.

They have been texting each other every day since March 28.

He was here in Lake Charles this past week, his fourth trip in eight months. She’s been to Minnesota once. On Valentine’s day, they decided to visit the restaurant where they had their first date.  He parks, gets the wheelchair out of the trunk, opens her door, scoops her up in his forearmless arms and gently settles her into her wheelchair, a dance of sorts, love in motion.

“I like that I can pick her up,” he said. “I like how tiny she is and how our bodies just seem to fit.”

After finding a job,  he’ll  find a house that can be modified, so they can be married.  He has a place in Crystal, Minnesota, along with a great job, but as Bennett points out, snow, ice and wheelchairs are not a good combination.

“Yeah, that’s not a four-wheel drive wheelchair,” Berkley said. “It snows eight months out of the year. It just makes sense to be here.”

Plus, Bennett’s mother is a nurse, her caregiver and she will need to drive Bennett to doctor’s appointments while Berkley is at work.

“I really think it is our faith that has gotten us this far,” Bennett said. “We’ll build our relationship on that foundation of faith and open, honest communication.”