I was just a random girl taking a photo of a random guy. He was co-hosting the event with a friend of mine, and I asked them to pose together for a quick shot. They posed, they smiled, and we all went our own way. I vaguely remember thinking he was cute, but now I can’t tell if it’s a memory I really had or if it’s just a story I’m telling in my head. I’d do anything to go back to that night and watch it unfold, see if I can tell from my face if somehow I knew that this person was going to change everything. Did we exchange pleasantries? Did we have a quick chat? Were we introduced? Did we shake hands and if we did, did we somehow know that one day we’d build a life together?

It was August 5, 2006. I look at the other photos of that night, and it feels like a lifetime ago. I went to different places that evening, met other friends, took other photos of other faces. We danced, we laughed, and I went home with my then-boyfriend, not knowing the tsunami of events that would happen just a few months down the road.

I like to imagine God rolling his eyes at me, because I was so busy straying from my path that I had no idea I had already met the man I would marry. In the process a person had to get hurt, and I’m not proud of that fact. It reminds me that my impatience has always brought so many unnecessary consequences; I would have spared myself and others a world of hurt had I just decided to wait.

But that’s the beauty of the mercy of God, isn’t it? That grace is always available, and at every turn we have the chance to go back to our purpose. My impulsivity was the rebellion of a heart that didn’t like to do what it was told. I knew that I wanted a love story for the ages, I wanted passion and fire and poetry, I wanted to be swept off my feet with adventures and laughter. I wanted it so bad that even the remotest possibility of it made me want to jump in headfirst. I felt like I was the one responsible for making it happen. Instead of trusting my own instincts, trusting that God had my best interest in mind, I shushed my spirit and said, hold my beer.

The older I get, the more I realize that stories take time to write. The pauses and the transitions and the expositions are all part and parcel of it unfolding. I didn’t have the patience for that when I was young, but now I know better. I understand that the idea of fate or destiny or divine design is a hard thing to accept or believe in. As a woman whose pride has gotten her into enough trouble, trust me when I say I know. But when I think about my own story, I feel like I’m watching a movie and yelling at the main actors for making dumb decisions that keep on taking them farther away from each other. We were in the same film class, we had the same friends, we were going to the same events. I was even very good friends with a girl that he was courting at the time; she told me about him! I heard the stories but didn’t have a face to go with the name. I didn’t know that he was going to be deeply intertwined in my own story, one day. Doesn’t that make you feel like life is so magical? That you could be literally an inch away from something or someone that could turn your life around and you wouldn’t even know. Doesn’t that make every moment feel so much more important than it seems to be? I think that idea is so breathtakingly beautiful. You really can’t take anything for granted, not even the seemingly little, insignificant things.

I do know that if he had met me where I was back then, we probably wouldn’t have worked. I was a very different person. Maybe I would have added him to the list of people I didn’t treat well. Maybe we would have still gotten to this point, but in a much more convoluted way, more bruises and less joy. So I’m thankful that up until early 2007, God hid us from each other.

I finally officially met him in a small waiting area of a small radio station, where he laughed at a joke I said to someone else. He was pretending to read a magazine, I was pretending not to notice him. He was wearing a red collared shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers. I definitely remember thinking then that he was cute. Little did we know that from that day on, we would be inevitable.