She said yes, then she said no. Any other time I would have written a person off for being flighty and unreliable. But this time, when I discovered the cause of her indecision, I became excited that she had turned me down. I had been sorely disappointed the previous year and “sworn off” dating. Then I met her; she was 22, and I was 25.

After taking a two-week vacation from my first job to serve as a counselor at a Christian camp in western New York (Camp Li-Lo-Li), I stayed on for an extra week to counsel at youth camp (unpaid leave from work). I had determined to serve the Lord and not fish for a young lady to date, and I was doing reasonably well in that department, even though many young women were counseling. However, it wasn’t until the third week that I began to notice one gal with whom I had been a little familiar from the previous year at camp. I found out later that she was unimpressed by my efforts at being a “Christian singer.” A preacher had once said that to discover your spiritual gift, you should just try them on for size and see which one or ones fit best. Well, my self-deluded vocalist ambitions fell short of gaining large audiences. If the size of one’s audience determines the quality of one’s singing, then the magnitude of my appreciative fans can be measured by the number of people that can fit into a small shower stall. To everyone’s good fortune, I soon retired from my musical aspirations.

She was one of those unimpressed when we first casually met the previous year. But at the same time, I hardly noticed her either, having been preoccupied with another gal (a relationship that soon fizzled out). This year, we caught each other’s eye, and something sparked. We had long conversations on the lodge porch near the Indian weather rock, she sitting on the porch rail and me leaning against one of the posts. If ever there was a connection between two human beings, that is what I felt. Unfortunately, she had only committed to being a weekend counselor and had to leave that Sunday evening to work the following week, where across the border in Canada where she lived. For the next five days, my intentions of wholeheartedly serving the Lord at the camp were crowded with my continual thoughts about her and the hope that she would come back for the second weekend of that camp session.

Finally, there she was—the earth stood still! She walked in on the evening chapel service. I was up at the front sitting on one of the side benches, and it just so happened a space opened beside me. Due to the way events unfolded (I don’t remember the details of people’s movements), she ended up sitting beside me. May God forgive me for not focusing on the Lord and His glory! But, as I recall, the clouds parted, the camp lake divided, the angels sang, and God’s Shekinah glory filled that place. That’s how I felt.

After the weekend concluded, it was time to leave camp. I procured her phone number, which she willingly wrote down for me. My heart was leaping—and she seemed to be interested in me as well. Could this be the one? The following week, without delay, I called her and asked her out for a date. I would drive the two hours across the border from my apartment in Buffalo, New York to St. Catharines, Ontario. Memory fails me in recounting what event or walk or dinner I had planned to enjoy with her; it didn’t matter because she accepted and was quite enthused about it! She really does like me! I thought. She definitely could be the one. Our phone conversation was brief (remember, this was some forty-seven years ago, when long-distance phone calling was expensive). After hanging up, I was so happy that I would have asked the Lord to delay the rapture until at least after the following weekend!

Then the crash burst into my soul! About half an hour later, she called back and fumbled about with words that said she was turning down my invitation. Tragedy! Devastating! Was it bad breath? Had I read too much into her actions and words at camp? Was I confusing the “camp high” experience with love? Was it just a summer fling (albeit a very short one)? Was she put off by my nonconformist behavior (I was still pretty young in my faith)? Did I say something offensive? It had happened to me the year before (a “Dear John” letter the first time); now it was happening again (a phone call)! I learned about trusting God’s will through my three years of spiritual growth since coming to faith in Christ, which helped me recover from heartache. Was God testing me to see if I loved Him more than having a date with a wonderful girl? But this time was going to be hard to swallow.

Not giving up easily, despite my rejection, I ventured to ask if she wouldn’t mind telling me why she had changed her mind so quickly and was now turning me down. Her answer floored me. She explained that a half-hour earlier, when she first said yes, she had forgotten about a previous commitment she made to a young girl she was discipling, to hand out gospel tracts at a county fair that same day at the same time as the proposed date I had invited her for. So, she had to turn me down for a date. She was hesitant; I was confused.

Her voice trailed off as I took a moment to get my mind around what I had just heard. Then I blurted out, “Can I come with you?” At this, she excitedly said, “Yes.” My heart took off with absolute amazement that here was a girl who prioritized keeping a commitment to the Lord over a date with a guy. Our first date was sharing Christ with people on a late summer evening with a younger girl (who was a new believer) in tow! This led to more dates, most of which centered on ministry-related events. Three months after that first date, I took her up to the top of the (then named) Panasonic Tower in Niagara Falls. With the colored lights shining on the waters, I took her in my arms and proposed. She was surprised; it was unexpected. But she said, “Yes!” with the same excitement as she said “Yes” for our first date. So began our walk of faith together, which has lasted (at the time of this writing) forty-six years.

I have often asked the question, “Why me, Lord?” Why was I given the opportunity to find a life partner like Mary? I wasn’t any different from any other young buck out there. So, I can say without any hesitation it is only by God’s grace that we have been so blessed. We do not deserve one iota of His goodness in our lives. We tell this story so that God would be magnified, that others would see that He can work quite remarkably in lives that would otherwise be quite ordinary. As for the Lord, we can say He has done great things!

(Note: I found out later that Mary had agonized the entire half-hour about her decision to call me back, thinking I would never ask her out again. In the end, she decided to trust the Lord and keep her commitment.)