An Anniversary Story and the Sovereignty of God

In March of 1981, I was a new employee of the Dallas Times Herald newspaper. I sold advertising in the Classified Advertising Department.

As part of my training, they "tapped" the phones of experienced Classified Ad agents, so that I could listen in and hear the technique.

The first one I got to listen to had a voice that I fell in love with -- "love at first hear". Didn't know who it was, except they said her name was Michele.

A day or two later, on a break in the lunch room, I stood in line at the vending machine for a snack. In front of me was a beautiful girl with long black curled hair. After she got her snack out of the machine, she turned and smiled at me, and said, "Hi".

It was she. The voice.

That smile knocked me back with a rush of wind that blew me through the double doors and out into the street and up past the sky, surrounded by the stars in outer space, my head spinning, wondering where in the Galaxy I was.

Not really.

But something like that.

You'll have to believe me that I was not normally subject to such emotional mental breaks. I was a quite rational person, and had not been quick to make decisions regarding what the world calls love-life. I was, in fact, not looking for a wife, and who knows, might even have been content to remain a bachelor forever.

And that's why I am convinced that in the sovereignty of God, He moved me from Michigan...

...and moved Michele from Long Island, New York...

...to meet at a vending machine in a newspaper lunch room in Dallas, Texas.

The Lord put a love in my heart for Michele that I can only call "at first sight". But "at first sight" or not, I have since come to know her better and better, and that love has grown, as I've come to see more and more what an incredible person she is.

Smart, intuitive, caring, sensitive, soft, tough as nails, weak, powerful, and "completing" me in more ways than I can count.

We didn't stay in Dallas. Nice place, but it was just a rendevous point in Divine Destiny.

In 1984 we were married.

Twenty-eight years later, it's funny (and mysterious) how Michele to me is still that beautiful bride I watched come up the aisle.

And when she smiles, I'm back somewhere in the Milky Way, spinning around in the stars.

Some people think 28 years is a long time. Not me. It's a blink of an eye. I'm just grateful to God that I could spend this blink of an eye with Michele.

Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart.