How I Met Your Mother

 

How I met your mother. 

No it’s not some cheap tag line to rope you into watching episode after episode of fail relationships.

This is truly how I met your mother.   I have to thank my roommate in college for initially propelling me in the direction that I took that Spring Break.  My roommate had signed up to serve at a Habitat For Humanity service project during Spring Break and I thought perhaps I should try it out as well.  I really didn’t want to just lounge around for a week doing nothing, I needed to be busy and so I went to sign up for the Habitat for Humanity mission trip.  I was excited, this was to be a great week of working hard and having fun with friends, but it was not to be.  I had signed up a little too late and the team I wanted to go on was full up.  Instead the campus Chaplin asked me if I would go on a different mission trip.  The mission tripe he was proposing for me would be a trip to California to do some work on a Christian summer camp.  I didn’t want to go on this trip and I recall being disappointed that I wouldn’t be going with my roommate and IF (a big if) I went I wouldn’t know anyone else on the team.  I hadn’t had much luck fitting in at College.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed my classes, had some great professors and the occasional co-ed sports events, but I just felt as if I didn’t belong on that campus.  I wasn’t too keen on meeting up with the other members of this spring mission’s team and run the risk I would have to spend an entire week with people I just didn’t fit in with.  

 

I gave the proposal some thought and reluctantly told the campus Chaplin that I would be willing to go, it beat staying at home or on campus doing nothing.   The only catch is that I would have to raise some funds in order to go…so I began to collect funds from church, and friends, and but I was fearful because  the time allotted to raise the money was drastically shortened due to my late addition to the mission team.  I remember being over a hundred dollar short, having no money to my name, and thinking I would have to call the Chaplin and tell him thanks but no thanks.  Then I received a call from him and he let me know that the rest of the funds were being covered and I should get packed up.   

 

So the day arrived that we were to all meet in the student center on campus for our departing bus ride to the airport.  I was still apprehensive of meeting new people; they were all stranger to me.  I remember thinking, how will I ever fit in?  But I packed up, and made my way to the lobby to wait.  I took a cushioned seat that was blue in color that was near a television.  As I sat there other team members arrived and also took seats as we all collectively waited for the bus to arrive.  A romantic movie was on the smallish box television and I remember partly watching it out of discomfort amidst new people.  I can’t remember if I struck up the conversation or the girl sitting next to me did, but we connected with a lot of commonalities and it was simply easy to converse with her.  We didn’t stop talking until the bus arrived and even on the bus ride we talked about everything from books we loved to films to music…the conversation flowed simply yet fluidly and didn’t seem to be forced or awkward.  It felt good!   Part of my fears of fitting in evaporated in those short hours of conversation, from a plane ride to another van ride; we connected all the way and spent much of the week together.  Things just clicked…little did I know that in just three short years she would say “yes” to a question that requires a lifetime commitment.  It took me a while to woo, partly because school came first for her…not so much with me (but that’s another story).  

 

I’ve heard it said of love that there is no such thing as soul mates…that many people could fit the bill in compatibilities within a relationship…perhaps that’s so…but not for me.   Looking back at it now, I can’t help but think that the details of our journey had been preordained.  I wasn’t meant to make it on the team that my roommate was leaving with.  I don’t feel that it was simply a coincidence that though I was short of funds to make it on this trip someone came in at the last minute and covered the balance.  I don’t find it coincidental at all that we connected from the moment we entered the first meeting place of our team.   So many coincidences leave me blown away in the realization that we were meant for one another.  Things didn’t just ‘fall into place’, things happened for a reason and in this case that reason was for me to meet your mother.   And the rest is a sweet and blessed history, not perfect mind you, but it is sweet nonetheless.   And in the words of Robert Frost, “And that has made all of the difference!”