Did you ever have a moment in your life when you had this sense that there was something more going on, something special happening, but you just didn’t know exactly what?

I did.  It was 14 years ago and like many stories in my life, it starts with food.   I was in Divinity School at the time, living in the Divinity Hall dormitory.  It was lunchtime and I was heading out to the “Chinese Truck,” one of a little village of food trucks near Div Hall, which was frequented by students, faculty and staff.  It was the best Chinese food you could get from a truck – which is not saying a lot.

As I left the dorm, I opened the door and there was this young woman sitting on the steps with four giant bags.  She was clearly one of the new residents moving in.  I curbed my hunger long enough to ask her if she needed help – a small miracle in and of itself.  She explained that she was a new student moving in, but the dorm was locked.  The resident assistants must have taken a lunch break themselves.  I unlocked the door for her, carried her bags to her room, and we chatted briefly.  Then I went to lunch.  And that’s how I met my wife, Jenny.

The whole encounter lasted, at most, five minutes, but there was the sense, I do remember, the sense of something more.  In retrospect, it was the beginning of something life-changing.

Our lives are full of these kinds of moments – moments large and moments small, where there is this sense that something more is happening, though we’re not sure what, and not sure how, and then later as we look back, it we see it.  Yes, there was something more was happening there, in that moment.  And we see how an everyday moment, a daily ritual, like going to lunch can turn out to be one of the defining moments in our lives. Continue reading