Ben called me last weekend while I was visiting my brother Sam in his home state of Virginia. I realized it was September 22nd - exactly one month since Ben had asked me to be his girlfriend. We talked that night for long time, me in Virginia and him in Pennsylvania... it was wonderful. He dug through his old files and found a card that I had written to him six years ago when he was first diagnosed with diabetes. He read it to me and it brought tears to my eyes.
I remember my wise uncle saying to me back then, "leave him with a blessing and you can never know what might happen in the future." I didn't really believe him back then but here we are - six years later and that man that I admired so long ago is my boyfriend. Today we sat together at the Sage Diner and marveled at it again - we have no clue how we got to this place except that God has been at work in some big, mysterious ways. Tonight, all I can do is raise my hands and my heart up in the air and thank Him.
Full circle. That's what I call it when He takes something that once was hard and brings redemption, restoration - beauty from ashes, gladness from mourning. When I let Ben go six years ago, I really let him go. Six years later, he came back... and now, here I am in relationship with someone who already is so special to me. What an adventure. Today, I stared at that man across the booth from me - the one who holds my hands and comforts me so well just by the way he looks at me. I do not understand how God works, but I am very, very grateful.
I began this summer with visions of adventures in a new job at a new church and as a fledgling counselor. God, in His wisdom and sovereignty, directed me to postpone that fledgling counselor bit for a few months. And I continue to learn how to be a boss at a new job in a new church. And now, I also find myself in an entirely new adventure - a relationship. I didn't see it coming, but God certainly did. And what an adventure it is. You know, it's really true that He is the Writer of our stories. So I buckle down, and I hold on, and I look forward with excitement to how the story will continue to be told. When you have such a Writer, you really can never know what's next... and that's the good part of it.
