I spent one year going out on blind dates in order to find The One. I was 35, recently out of a broken engagement, and ready to get married. I spent one lugubrious year slogging thru date after date, and finally, I met the guy. Or so I thought…

Date 77 was with a linguistics professor who had quite an impressive resume. Solomon was so inviting and inclusive and just … warm. It was so good to be in his presence and surrounded by his sexiness. I was like a walking grilled-cheese sandwich, all gooey and soft. I imagined that lying in his arms would be like resting in a jar of marshmallow crème.

His cell phone rang. Thirty seconds later, he was gone. An emergency took him away. Fate dragged him off. I stood there in my black boots with the rain misting softly on my hair, and almost started to cry, yet I was overcome with the feeling that I would never again have to add to my blind dating list that was only growing out to nowhere. I decided to celebrate with a taco and a beer.

But here’s the catch: I never saw Solomon again. When leaving the restaurant, I heard a voice say, “Call Michael Potts.” I quickly turned around to see if someone I knew was behind me playing a joke on me, but there was no one there. But I’d heard the voice. I had heard my mother’s voice before, it’s just hard to recognize when it speaks to me.

Michael Potts was a younger guy who I currently worked with in the funeral industry. More specifically, he worked for my company, and I had met him a month or so earlier in the lobby of a funeral home while we both were presiding over a funeral service. I didn’t like him when we met. He became real annoying and never would get the hint that I just wasn’t that into him!

So here I was, standing outside my favorite taqueria, hearing a voice that told me to call some guy who I could swear that I would never call in a million years. But I am a woman of faith, so in about a minute I called, he answered, and couldn’t believe I was really phoning him. Yeah, neither could I.

We talked all night. It was funny, but he said everything I wanted to hear, and so sweetly and genuinely. I brushed him off after one conversation, and if fate hadn’t intervened, who knows how my future dates would have played out.

About three weeks into dating he said, “I am not the marrying kind. I’ve never wanted to get married before, but I’ll tell you something. If our relationship is this good in a year from now, I am asking you to marry me.”

One year later we were married, and are now parents to a beautiful baby girl.