For the Record: The Day I Met My Husband

I think that this is a memory that I need to keep fresh, because the day that I met my husband was a very important day. The day that I met my husband was rather unexpected, and it wasn't for several months later that we would even become interested in each other.

Back in 1998 (wow that seems like million years ago!), I was freshly graduated from college and living, yes I will admit it...I was still living with my parents. I was attending the same church from my teen years, a member of the choir, and regular attender of the church's meat market Single's Ministry. The ministry met twice a month for prayer, Bible study, and fellowship.

The night that I met my husband happened to be on a chilly February night. I had prepared my finest dish for the pot-luck that night.....Yes, I wanted to prove my gourmet cooking abilities, so I prepared one box of rotini noodles and dumped a jar of store-bought sauce on top of it. And because I was feeling really dangerous, I sprinkled the whole thing with a generous dose of Parmesan Cheese. I put on my very cute red sweater, sassy blue jeans, chunky boots, a black knee length coat, and a furry black cap. The furry black cap has a story all it's own about how it came to be mine, but I will leave the black cap story for another edition of For the Record. And the only reason I have any clue what I wore that night, is because my darling husband remembers. Because I totally don't remember at all.

Now what makes this story interesting is the fact that I wasn't even interested in meeting anyone at the Meat Market Single's Ministry, because I was already interested in someone else. And I will make the embarrassing confession about this person. I had brought this particular person to several church events, and the reason that I brought him, did the picking up, the driving, payed the tab, etc...ugh, just spit it out already, Jenny! Okay, the guy was on House Arrest. For drug charges. There I said it. He wore the ankle bracelet and everything. Whenever we went out, we had to get special permission from his parole officer. And since my father was a police officer, permission was always granted. The reason why he was on house arrest and not prison? He was battling cancer. I did not pick him up for this particular meeting because he was not feeling well that evening. And incidentally, my friend passed away from his cancer, a few months later.

So on this particular chilly evening, I strutted my stuff (and my gourmet pasta dish!) into the meeting. When I walked into the door, I noticed a new guy. Cute, yes, but not striking at the time. The other thing I noticed right off the bat about this guy was the cigarettes hanging out of his pocket, and was immediately turned off. Ewwww. Then there was the fact that he came with another guy that I really didn't like because he had a very bad habit of lying to other people about me about random things.....like I was going to marry him, of all things. Double ewwwww!

As the evening progress, and my disinterest in particular the new guy, he finally did introduce himself to me as Eben, and complimented me on the on the item that I had brought. I smiled sweetly, and replied, "Thanks! It came out of a jar!" I am sure that he was totally impressed. I asked what he had brought, and he had added cornbread muffins to the evening's affair. I had tasted the corn muffins earlier, and they were the dryest, nastiest things ever. I felt sorry for him, having to go home and eat whatever it was that he ate on a given day, and asked if he would like to take home some from the jar gourmet pasta. He did.

I went home that night, the same way that I had came. Alone. And with only a faint memory of a guy that made nasty cornbread muffins.

It was several months later that we would become interested in one another. But God was not finished preparing us for one another. And how we came to be a couple is yet another story...and it involves a heart condition, a softball game, a trumpet, a goldfish, a king sized mattress, the two ladies that turned out to be my bridesmaids, and a sink full of dirty dishes. But we will save all that for another day, since this post has turned into a mini-novel.