January 14, Epiphany 2B (1 Sam. 3:1-20; Ps. 139:1-6, 13-18; John 1:43-51)

I had always thought the pulse quickened, that that’s how you knew. That’s what I’d heard at least—that your heart rate sped up when the other person was around. Mine didn’t; it slowed. So I didn’t think of that physical symptom as an indicator of what was happening. But looking back I can tell you that when we were in the same place, no matter how big the room, I was calmer knowing he was there.

Then when I was preparing to do a wedding rehearsal that would inevitably run late—and I am nearly Teutonic in my precision—he said gently, “Well, you know that that will happen, so what will you do when it does?” He was so apt and knowing and gentle.

He was, of course, all wrong—too young and a big sports fan and planning a cross-country move. But he was just so interesting. I hadn’t thought to pray for “interesting” when imagining a spouse, but there he was, a great conversation partner. We are married now, and delightfully so. My epiphanies almost always happen after the fact. The situation presented is not obviously the right or only choice. A choice gets made anyway, and only upon reflection, often many years later, do I see the red thread of God’s hand leading me through, that the same God who beheld “my limbs yet unfinished in the womb” (Ps. 139:15) led me to something good and right and fitting and lush. I never know that, though, in the moment. In the moment there are simply all of life’s options.