How we met (Warning: long!)

Tonight is a good night to write about how Micah and I met each other, because that day was exactly four years ago tomorrow:o) (Sept 28).

I like to think of this as God's special "orchestration"...something that almost didn't happen...but did.

Micah and I were both sophomores at the same university. Because this was a small university...about 3000 students, it still surprises me that we hadn't had any of our freshman core classes together, and really have no memory of each other from freshman year. I have one very vague memory from prior to our meeting: I saw Micah with some of his friends on the way to the cafeteria. It was just a glance. But I remember seeing his face, and thinking he was handsome. His eyes were beautiful.

My friend Leslie, who lived in my hall, was planning to have a get-together at her sister's house in town. She invited me, and of course I said I would go! Leslie was the kind of girl everybody wants as a friend: fun, outgoing, and she knew lots of great people. Leslie teasingly told me that she wanted to set me up with a guy she knew that would be at her party. I said I would be glad to meet him, but I didn't think I would be interested! I had a little crush on somebody else at the time.

The evening of the party came, and I suddenly realized that I hadn't yet asked Leslie for directions to her sister's house. When I went back to our hall, she was already gone and so was everyone else who was going to the party. I had missed out. Well, no sense moping around about it. A few of my other friends were going to hang out at an off-campus student's house, and so I decided to go with them. After staying there about an hour, everybody decided to go out for pizza. One of the girls needed to run back to the dorm first, so I went with her. As we walked through the parking lot, I heard my name being shouted. I looked around and saw Desi, one of the girls who was supposed to be at the party, sitting in her car. She had come back to the dorm for something as well.

"Where are you going? I thought you were coming to our party tonight!"
"I was, if I knew where to go!"

Desi gave me directions, and I said I might come by. As we walked back towards the pizza-going group, I started moaning about how I didn't want to walk to Leslie's sis' house in the dark by myself. "I just won't go...it's not a big deal," I said. For whatever reason, my friends were insistent that I go. They offered to walk with me, so I consented.

So in I walked, about two hours late. Dinner had already been eaten. If you know my personality, it is certainly not desirous of making this type of "grand entrance"! Leslie was as gracious as ever, and introduced me around. She gave me a significant look as she introduced her friend that I was supposed to eventually fall in love with. But beyond his quick greeting, I don't remember seeing that guy again the rest of the evening.

I met a guy named Ben, we began talking, and I listened in fascination when I learned that he had grown up in Brazil. During this conversation, he had a friend sitting next to him who didn't really talk much. This friend (I found out later) had been persuaded to attend this function where he didn't know anybody because Ben didn't want to go alone. Ben hadn't really been invited either, but due to his great "admiration" for the hostess, had somehow managed to invite himself:o)

The friend spoke up a couple of times, and I learned that his name was Micah. He had grown up in Venezuela. Again, I noticed his eyes and how clear and blue and beautiful they were. But the party ended without any great revelations, I continued my normal life, and my crush on the other guy continued to give me pains because it didn't look like it was going to go anywhere.

One thing changed, however. I now began to see this guy, Micah, everywhere, when before I had somehow managed to live in almost complete unawareness of him. When we would pass on the sidewalk, he would always smile and say hi to me. I remembered him, but did not remember his name! It was that whole "hi......you!" thing:o) He remembered mine.

Sometime in November, I finally came to the bitter conclusion that the crush I had long pinned my hopes on was to be given up. I prayed about it long and hard and was finally able to release it to God. This milestone is marked simply in my journal at that time:

November 5, 2001
"The death of a hope is the cruelest kind of pain."

But it was OK. I finally felt at peace, and ready to allow God to do what He wanted with my life.

Sometime during the following week (I don't know the exact date), I was sitting studying in one of the lounges in the student life center. The guy with the beautiful eyes whose name I could not remember, suddenly showed up out of the blue and started talking to me. It was casual chit-chat, which lasted for probably 15 minutes before he had to head off to class. Afterwards, I told my friends: "You know, this is getting embarrasing that I can't remember this guy's name, and it's getting to be too late to ask him!" "The guy who always says hi to you? His name is Micah!" my friend Megan informed me. "No...if I heard it I would remember. It wasn't Micah!"

That afternoon, I checked my email to find one that said:

Hey Erin, this is Micah. I’m hoping this is the Erin I know, from Texas. I saw you today at [the cafeteria] at 11:00. I just wanted to ask if you wanted to eat with us someday? If you don’t normally eat then, that’s ok. Sorry about emailing you out of the blue!;o) Hope you have a great day.
Micah

Megan had her triumph. I had an offer to accept, and this was not difficult. From then on, there was no stopping the growing friendship that started with emails, lunches, phone calls and evening walks and ended up as a beautiful marriage. There's much more to say about our dating/courtship years, but that will wait for another time! Otherwise I might have to write a book in this one post.