16 Years Ago Today

Sixteen years ago today I met my dream woman. It was a Sunday night, my first weekend at college, and I was visiting a church in a seedy part of town. I arrived way too early, and the pastor's wife assessed the scrawny Bible college student standing in the doorway.

"What's your ministry?"

"Piano and puppets."

"We don't have any puppets tonight. Can you play the piano?"

"Sure."

Twenty minutes later I was playing a song from a chord sheet while the pastor led worship. I think the song was "Blow the Trumpet in Zion." It was a "Jewish-style" praise chorus that takes a passage about God judging the Israelites with locusts and turns it into a celebratory dance. But it was the pastor's favorite, as I would later discover.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a young lady walk into the sanctuary and take a seat. While the offering was being received, the pastor called her to the platform to welcome her back from summer vacation. Apparently she was a regular.

"Do you want to sing a special?" he asked her.

"Sure," she said and asked if I knew the hymn "It Is Well With My Soul."

"Yeah," I stammered, trying not to gawk. It was definitely well with my soul.

Later that evening I joined her and several other North Central students at the associate pastor's home to share a pizza. I don't remember much about that evening except the uncomfortable feeling of desperately wanting to stare but acknowledging the social unacceptability of such behavior. I remember her clothes, her shoes, her glasses, the way she took them off when she adjusted her hair and, most of all, her laugh.

And I distinctly remember saying to myself in the most matter of fact of terms, I'm going to marry her.

Needless to say, at the time the feeling was not mutual, and I had the presence of mind to refrain from expressing my intentions until a more appropriate occasion. But the occasion did come, she said "Yes," and the rest is history.

Of the many ways God reveals His endless affection for me, none is more dramatic than the gift of my wife. I can honestly say the feelings I encountered in that living room 16 years ago pale in comparison to my love for my wife today. It is a both a qualitative and a quantitative difference, and it is a result of the sum total of joy, trials, pain and pleasure that we have experienced together.

You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride;
you have stolen my heart
with one glance of your eyes,
with one jewel of your necklace.
- Song of Solomon 4:9