How My Husband and I Met Two Years Ago Today

It was two years ago today--the last Sunday in June--that I first saw him, the man who would, just over a year later, become my husband.

Sunday night was when our church youth group met, and I was one of the adult volunteers. In the spirit of summer and a season of R&R, we were forgoing formal times of teaching for fun activities; tonight's was a capture-the-flag water-balloon-fight. Talk about laying the stage for romance.

I had picked up one of the girls in my group and remember pulling into the church parking lot and spying this guy I'd never seen before, hauling a big bucket filled with water balloons. I caught myself staring at him and had to snap back to attention, lest I model poor behavior for the sweet sixteen year old in my passenger seat!

The youth group pastor (who also officiated our wedding the following summer) divided the kids and volunteers into two teams; as it turned out, the cute new guy and I were on opposing teams. Having no desire to get hammered with water balloons, I decided to stay back and guard the flag. Of course, it would be my luck that he would be the one to come and snatch our flag. I threw a few lame attempts to stop him, but whether you blame it on my bad aim or his debilitating good looks, it was inevitable, and he got away with the flag.

It was at this point when one of the girls on my team ripped the flag away from her little sister, whom cute-new-guy had passed the flag to. So here I was in a dilemma; cute-new-guy and the little sister are looking at me to chastise the older sister for breaking the rules. I've never been one for confrontation and I barely know anything about disciplining someone, even when it's only fair and out of love. I'd been acting as a leader for the youth group for about two years at this point, and so I saw these girls as little sisters. I halfheartedly told the older sister she needed to give the flag back.

I immediately knew I had not handled that situation appropriately at all. When the game wrapped up (only moments later), I went and talked to the older sister and had her apologize to her little sister. Then it was time for me to apologize. To him. This was our first meeting. I went up to him, introduced myself, and told him I was sorry for the flimsy way I handled the interaction earlier. He gracefully accepted and I walked away, tail between my legs but knowing the apology was necessary.

Afterward, some of the other volunteers and I went up to the Sonic up the street to hang out after all the kids had been picked up and gone home. The youth pastor came and who did he bring with him but the new guy. As luck would turn out, one empty seat was right across from me, the other was catty-corner to me. I was well aware of this great, providential positioning. And cute-new-guy, my future husband, chose the seat catty-corner to me, where we got to begin to mend our ill-started friendship over french fries and milk shakes.

There was next to no flirting that night, nor for many nights afterward. It was a month later that he asked me out on our first date (actually a double date with our youth pastor and his wife). But each year since, we've made it a point to go back to Sonic and memorialize that fateful meeting of water balloons, my first apology, and milkshakes at sunset.

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{ photo by brandon christopher warren  }