I Was Wrong

It feels like it just happened yesterday.

Not a decade ago, today.

The matchmaking efforts of my cousin had drawn Aaron and I to a local Italian restaurant after church on a Sunday.

I hadn’t the courage to meet him on my own and agreed to lunch if we dined as a group.

I expected rejection. After all, that’s basically what I’d received my entire life and I’d grown to accustom to it.

I even believed that’s what I deserved.

No one would want me. That had been clear since I had my first crush in elementary school. Reinforced all throughout junior high and high school, and were I ever given a chance, I had to take it because it was meant to be.

But that whole theory had been blown to smithereens a year before, and all I had to show for it was a wounded and fragile heart.

Where would I meet someone? What would they think of me? Would anyone ever want to give me the time of day when they knew?

I picked out my favorite black dress. The one that gave me confidence because I needed every ounce of courage my bones could conjure up to carry me through the hour.

He made his way to the table, eyes clear and blue as the summer sky and I knew this would be the first and last time we’d ever sit across from one another on a date.

He was handsome and kind. Successful and charming. Godly and respectful and polite, too.

Everything I’d always dreamed of, prayed for, and had come to believe didn’t actually exist.

All embodied in the man that deserved a woman of equal caliber.

He would never settle for someone like me.

He deserved better, and his professional handshake at the end of our meal confirmed all my assumptions.

Until he called me later that night.

Sometimes I’m still amazed that it happened. That this is my life.

Especially after what had been.

I’ll never get over how God has gone above and beyond. How He met all the desires of my heart even though I’d long given up. How He got me back on track after I’d forged my own path in the wrong direction.

I’d been wrong. About so many things, all that time.

And I’ll forever be grateful that God, in His infinite kindness, made it all right.