It’s amusing how God turns things around in ways we don’t expect it to.

Sometime this month last year, I prayed to God to give me strength and patience to see love blossom on its own.  I asked this because I was never the “take-things-slow” type when it came to relationships.  I had always been the one to jump off the relationship-cliff with my eyes closed, not knowing whether the water below would be freezing cold, warm, shallow or deep.  Let’s not forget that I would do this even when I didn’t even know how to swim.

So when I started seeing this guy who seemed to be okay enough – a Chinese-American who is “okay-looking,” intelligent, financially stable with a good personality, even though I wasn’t really attracted to him, I thought, maybe I could give it a chance and take things differently.  I’d always tell myself that the best relationships I knew of started with two people being friends and knowing each other deeply.

Three months passed by and we would see each other regularly yet I was still half-hearted.  I knew he was too, because whatever we had would just not go to the next level.  Not one of us wanted to commit so we remained “just dating.”  Every week, we would have dinner, watch a movie or hang out to talk and then on Sundays, we would attend service together.  Each time, I would talk to God to help me endure, to see things His way because I wanted someone to spend the rest of my life with and this guy just didn’t seem to be “it” yet I wanted to see God’s plans for us.  So I endured.

He had been a good “regular date.”  He would always drive to pick me up and bring me home even when he lived 40 miles away from me.  He was never late for our plans and I was always part of his plans.  We got plane tickets to go to New York in Fall and visit my best friend, Alexis, in New Jersey.  He even brought up the idea of wanting to go with me to the Philippines, the next time I visit.

Three more months had passed until I experienced a really bad week – I quit my job, I got a new job only to walk out of it after a day and a half and then I had a bad interview for a job I never imagined I would take.  My Chinese-American “date” told me the night before that since my driver’s license expired, he would pick me up from the interview so I wouldn’t have to take the bus then we could just hang out and go to San Diego to watch the sunset.  I really thought that was really sweet of him until I got out of that really bad interview the next day and didn’t find his “baby”- his two-door Mercedes Benz outside the store.  I called him and he didn’t pick up until my fourth call.  He sounded like I woke him up and didn’t have any idea why I was calling at 8:30 in the morning.  He actually forgot which was very surprising because he had never cancelled on me and had never been late when he said he’d do something for me.

He told me he’d just take a quick shower and would pick me up but I was in Los Angeles which is about 50 miles away and I didn’t want to wait and just be bored so I told him I’d just go to him.  He was dubious because “there are no buses going to Rancho,” but I found a train that actually went up there.  Since it was my bad week, of course, I missed the first train and had to wait for an hour and a half for the second one.  What made matters worse was that I only had 35% battery left of my phone so I could only chat with Alexis for a little bit because I needed to save my battery.

So I sat by the station while waiting for the train to arrive, with a pen and the train map.  I started scribbling my thoughts on the map, thinking about the events in my life, talking to God in between, asking him what the freak was I doing and if it was the right thing.  My friends’ advices resounded in my head, reminding me that “real love takes time.”

Who was I to know that God gave me the patience to endure that quasi-relationship to pave way for “The One” He meant for me.  On that morning, when Murphy’s law was working a good deal on me, a stranger asked me for the time and if the train I was about to get into was the train going to Pomona.

Today, only eight months since we’ve met, that stranger and I are now sharing his last name.