November 5, 2005

A Decade

Tiffany and I met exactly 10 years ago. Here’s how it all happened. The day was November 5,1995. It was a Sunday morning. Cue the psychedelic time warp music.

I was in my sophomore year in college at the University of Mobile. As an intern at First Baptist North Mobile, I had several duties, but one of them was to take photographs of people who joined the church with a—get ready for this—a Polaroid camera. We were high tech. Then we’d put that picture in the bulletin the following week so that others could “meet” our new members.

Tiffany was in her freshmen year at University of Mobile. Although we’d never noticed each other, she’d been visiting First Baptist North Mobile for several weeks. On November 5th at the end of the morning worship service, she felt God telling her that she needed to join the church. So she did. She filled out the paperwork, and then I ushered the new member candidates out of the auditorium and into the church office to take their picture.

The story would be much better if I could remember more about that morning or the taking the picture I took, but I was all business-like, wanting to make sure I did my job well.

Tiffany and I both came back for the service that night, and we happened to sit beside each other. At first she was sitting on one end of the pew, and I was sitting way over on the other end of the same pew. But, as the auditorium began to fill up, we began to scoot closer and closer toward one another until we were right beside each other. We talked a little throughout the service, and hung around and talked more after it was over. I asked for her phone number. I called her the next day and asked if I could take her on a date the following weekend. She said yes. She later confessed that she thought I was being extra nice to her as part of my job, like some kind of welcoming gesture.

My first impression of Tiffany was that she was beautiful, spiritual, quiet, and classy, which turned out to be exactly right.

Goodness how time flies.