March 22, 1987

I strolled into the Industry Hills Sheraton in La Puente, California, invited by my roommate’s boyfriend to his Dad’s birthday gathering, a first-class Sunday brunch buffet. Almost everyone had arrived, so I took a seat near one end. Five minutes later, the last family member straggled in, and my life changed forever.

We talked. He asked about my interests and direction in life. I admired his easygoing manner and tanned good looks. Recently graduated and employed, I felt finally independent of the strict missionary parents who had hoped I would find a nice Baptist boy at Biola. He had seen plenty of the girls who didn’t have strict missionary parents. For five years, he’d given up on dating, instead fishing often in Azusa Canyon, alone. Listening, waiting, learning to live from his heart. I told him I wasn’t the romantic type. He just smiled.

After hours of conversation, he offered me a ride back to his folks’ place. At the far end of the deserted parking garage, I saw two cars, a generic sporty one and an odd-looking thing resembling an ancient VW, black, with a big yellow taxicab number stuck on top. I headed for the sports car, and tried to think of humorous remarks deriding the other vehicle’s clearly unconventional owner. Until I realized I was walking with him.

When we parted that day, he shook my hand, looked into my eyes, and said he hoped we’d meet again. We did.

Mitch saw my heart that day, at a time I’d forgotten I had one. I am a completely sold-out romantiholic, and he knew that immediately. Sometimes in the quiet moments at end of day, I sigh deeply and say, out loud if he’s not already asleep, “Could anyone in the world possibly be as happy?”

I hope you all are.

For my married friends, when the days grow long and the paychecks or tempers short, please pause for a moment and remember how and why you fell in love and Who guided you to him or her.

For my single friends who would so very much like not to be, please invite me to join your "Pray-me-down-the-aisle" team. Marriage is so incredibly wonderful that I want everyone, who so desires, to experience this Eden at the foot of Calvary.

If you are a bird with broken wing, the God who sees each sparrow fall promises you a future and a hope. He is the God of second chances, or as many as we need. Your dreams can fly again.

And if you do go on that first special date, never miss a really good opportunity to keep your mouth shut, in the presence of someone else’s treasure. Out of Mitch’s multitude of cars, I don’t know of one he loved more, or parted with more sacrificially, than his 1959 Morris Minor. It quickly grew from comical to legendary status in my eyes, particularly since I’ve worn it now on my left hand for nearly 15 years.

Thank you, Sweetheart, for the nineteen most romantic years of my life! I’ll tell you so in person when I get home tonight! :-)