during our life, we will all have the chance to meet hope. not necessarily a person named hope (although i have met a few of them in my lifetime), but a something- an experience, a person, a thing that serves as hope for you and whatever you’re going through in your life. for me, God is my ultimate source of hope and i know that any real life form of hope that i meet is sent through Him…

so i’ve encountered hope several times in my life. each time it has been an enchanting experience, one that left me excited about the future and feeling better about my situation; whatever it may have been…one that gave me the strength to continue. so i guess you could say that there have been specific ‘hopes’…a “finanicial hope”, an “academic hope” a “friendship hope”…and the one that i’m specifically talking about today, a “relationship hope”.

i knew of my “relationship hope” for a while before we ever had a conversation. usually we spoke in passing…the traditional head nod that acknowledges that you’ve seen someone before and that you recognize them, or even sometimes, the smile- followed with a quick “hey, how are you” before we both went our own way.

we didn’t formally meet until the summer…a meeting that had to be orchestrated by fate. i was heading to lunch at sutton’s with the girls and he was heading to lunch somewhere else on franklin street. he was supposed to be following the people that he was going to lunch with, but ended up going a different way than they had- which allowed him to run into me. we talked for a few minutes…he took my phone number…and then we were both on our way to lunch as previously planned. ironically enough, i ran into him several more times that day…when we had gone a VERY long time without seeing each other.

now any female knows that the waiting game…waiting for a guy to call you…can be one of the most difficult things to do. luckily, i had been swamped with preparing for the next phase of my life and with working…so i wasn’t overly anticipating the call. i figured it would come when it would come. and the phone call did come…on a friday night after i’d just had a ‘not so good’ dinner with someone from my past. we talked that night…for a long time…almost 2 hours, and i went to sleep feeling refreshed.

over the next few days we talked more…generally every night, about all types of things. eventually we went out on a few dates. if i’ve talked to you about this (which i probably have if you’re one of my girls), you know that every date was great- and that he was great- very thoughtful and considerate, just making every date different from anything that i had ever experienced before.

like most good things, they have to end…and so things fizzled out very slowly. imagine a bonfire being encountered by a slow rain shower. initially, there’s not enough water for it to die, but over enough time, it eventually goes out. and that’s what brings me to the present. it’s taken me a good while to sort my thoughts about the situation, because i had such mixed emotions about everything that happened. i went on a rollercoaster of excitement and possibility that ended with (oddly enough) disappointment and hope. disappointment…well i think that feeling speaks for itself; but hope because i’ve encountered something beautiful, and because i know that there’s something like that out there that some people are blessed to encounter everyday…

so…i had a chance meeting of hope…one summer afternoon that blossomed into a wonderful experience of learning and growing. all in all, i’m grateful for the experience…

and finally quotes that describe how i feel:

“if the Lord allowed you to experience that, the best is still yet to come”
~my girl, crystal

“when i think about what i want… it has to be something that i couldn’t have imagined for myself and that’s how i felt when i went out with him. every date was special and thoughtful to the point that i wouldn’t have imagined that for myself…like little things that really mattered, but that i wouldn’t have consciously thought of.”
~me, to crystal, about the situation

“a woman must hide her heart in the heart of God so that a man has to go there to find it”

that’s it…peace and blessings all…