By Jean Anderson
“Three strikes, you’re out!” Right? That’s what I had decided about the “game of marriage” – and since those previous swings had resulted in some pretty serious damage — not just to me but to my children and extended family — I was OK with being out of the game!
And besides, red is NOT my color!
Still, there I was, wearing a red hat (it “just happened” to be cherry red, the only shade I could stand to wear), sitting at the top of an open staircase. Reading a poem about “When I grow old I shall wear purple, and a red hat . . .” at a Single Adult Fellowship meeting. And, yes, my dress was purple.
The door opened for an interesting looking late-comer who opened a folding chair and sat in the only available space at the back of the group at the bottom of the stairs. His cowboy boots were topped by a Greek fisherman’s cap over a face framed by sideburns and crossed with a mustache! I didn’t think he even noticed me but I was busy trying to think of a “ladylike” way to start a conversation when the meeting ended. If I had known he had heard God’s whisper, “There’s your wife,” I would never have spoken to him!
But, he didn’t tell me that then, and I managed to redirect his every effort to find out my name or phone number, even though we engaged in the most wonderful back-and-forth conversation that lasted through a tour of the bed and breakfast establishment where the meeting took place, through helping our hostess clean up, and even through a half hour out in the coldest night of that winter.
After about three weeks (during which I kept telling God, “No, no, no!!!” – He was speaking to my heart, too) at a subsequent meeting, I finally told him that if he really wanted to see more of me, he could meet me the following Sunday at the nursing home where my parents and I would be singing and leading a devotional time for the residents in the afternoon. And then I was late. Who was he visiting with when I came in? My father. And then, my parents invited him to come for supper . . .
This happened in February, 1994. We’ve been gloriously married since September of that year!
