living by accident

So the strangest thing happened. But before I tell you about it, it’s going to require a little back story I think:

As some of you may remember, I gave myself a time limit to date. I had kind of tried to do things on my own terms, my own time, earlier in the year. Not just with dating, but with most things in life. While I never really had a relationship, I had gone on a few dates and such with a really great girl up north, but none the less, I was still on the search for one and it just wasn’t the right time. It seemed like the easiest thing to have self-control over and, in all honesty, it worked. That’s not to say that the world didn’t try. I still met people, because it’s just in my nature to want to make new friends. And I had offers, but I just wasn’t interested. Shortly after my birthday, I decided to give it all up. I gave myself a little over six months. I gave myself until October, 31st. When that day came, I didn’t even notice. I had gotten so used to just not caring about starting relationships or finding someone that I had completely forgotten about the time I had committed to God.

So last weekend, Sunday to be exact, my friend Amy invited me to come hang out with her and Ross, her boyfriend, apparently in hopes of setting me up with her friend. Something I would’ve probably refused had I really known about it. We go to church, no friend. We go to lunch, no friend. I’m starting to think that God is on my side here and agrees with my decision to not want to meet her. Then He did something that changed my mind completely.

A very beautiful girl walks up to my table, looks at me and smiles, and I suddenly remembered that the commitment I had made to myself and to God had been met. That the time limit I proposed to focus on Him, and family and friends, and everything else important, was done. I had kept my promise to Him. And all of a sudden I felt like God was fulfilling His promise to me. I know it sounds cheesy, but I don’t really know how to explain what was happening. The feeling just felt like one long, weightless exhale. Filled with comfort, filled with hope and possibility and, most importantly, filled with God’s timing, not mine. I’m not saying it was some love-at-first-sight thing, or anything comparable to TV romance, but it felt like more than a chance meeting too. She wasn’t Amy’s friend, though. That girl never showed up that day. This was someone none of us knew, but I felt like she was someone I needed to get to know. So, being me, I did what you would probably expect me to do: I left without saying anything at all!

As we left the restaurant, I quickly discovered that Amy thought something bigger was at stake here too. As she stared at me, shaking her head in disbelief that I could pass up such a perfect opportunity, I got barraged with a hailstorm of questions about why I didn’t talk to “that nice girl at the restaurant who obviously wanted me to talk to her.” But, I didn’t go back in. We got in the car, drove away and I figured I’d always regret my decision to not at least try. I mean, I even felt like God was shaking His head in disbelief at me, but what was I supposed to do?!

That night, I went out to dinner with DeJuan. We went back to the restaurant, hoping to see her, but also hoping she wasn’t still working so that I didn’t look like a complete creep. Low and behold, she was still working…and didn’t think I was a creep. To hasten the story, I’ll summarize the rest of the visit. She sat at our table when she could, chatted and we had a lot of fun talking to her and getting to know her. By the time DeJuan and I were done catching up, she was already off work. We invited her to come with us and hang out for a bit as DeJuan wanted to give me a tour of the campus where he goes to school. To my surprise, she accepted and we ended up hanging out until almost one in the morning, never running out of conversation and fun.

We’ve hung out one other time after that, but we’ve been talking fairly regularly. I went up to visit her, met some of her friends, and had a really great time. We ended up sitting up talking until almost 3 o’clock in the morning. Time just flew by and we never noticed how long we had been sitting there together. I’m not rushing into anything here. I still want to make sure that I don’t lose focus of the important things in my life. I want to make sure that I go about this how God intended it. I feel like, as typical as this probably sounds, that God brought us together in that place, for one reason or another. I don’t want to make the wrong decision and assume I know why He did it, I just want to take my time getting to know this person that has yet to cease to amaze me. Who has, without fail, continued to captivate my imagination and keep a smile on my face that I had long forgotten could exist there. I’m constantly in awe of every new part of her life that I discover and, no matter what happens, I’m looking forward to seeing where this adventure will lead.

And that is the story of how I met Katelyn Flynn. A story that is far from over. A story that, I hope, is only beginning. A story that I am going to let God write.