Before We Ever Said Hello
Two Baptisms. Two Journeys. One Author.
As I continue walking through my Hallway of Remembrance, my eyes keep returning to one of the earliest stones.
June 29, 1990.
It is a date that means more to me with each passing year—not because it marks the day I met my wife, but because on that day, we had never even said hello.
We were living separate lives, walking separate roads, and pursuing separate futures. Neither of us knew the other existed. Yet on that same day, June 29, 1990, we both stepped into the waters of baptism.
The remarkable part isn’t that we were baptized on the same day.
The remarkable part is that we had never met.
At the time, it felt like a personal decision between each of us and God—a decision to leave an old life behind and begin a new one with Christ.
Looking back thirty-six years later, I can see something I could not see then.
God was already writing a story much bigger than either of us imagined.
When I walk through my Hallway of Remembrance, I pass many treasured stones. There are memories of family, friendships, ministry, answered prayers, and moments that changed the course of my life.
Each stone reminds me that God has been faithful.
Each stone tells part of the story.
But recently, my attention has been drawn back to one of the very first stones in that hallway.
June 29, 1990.
A stone that reminds me where everything truly began.
At the time, neither of us had any idea what the future held. We didn’t know what opportunities God would place before us, what challenges we would face, or what joys and sorrows awaited us.
All we knew was that Jesus was calling us to follow Him.
So we said yes.
Looking back now, I realize something beautiful.
While God was teaching me to follow Him, He was teaching my future wife to follow Him too.
While I was taking my first steps of discipleship, so was she.
Neither of us knew the other existed.
Yet God was working in both of our lives at the very same moment.
While I was learning to trust God with my future, God was preparing someone who would one day share that future with me.
Neither of us could see the story.
We only saw our own chapter.
But the Author already knew how the pages would come together.
One of the blessings of growing older is gaining enough distance to recognize God’s fingerprints on moments that once seemed ordinary.
A decision that appeared personal turns out to have consequences far beyond what we imagined.
A single step of faith becomes the foundation for countless blessings that follow.
Most of us have moments like that.
Moments that seemed ordinary at the time but whose significance only became clear years later.
We thought we were making a decision.
God was laying a cornerstone.
As June 29 approaches once again, I find myself grateful.
Grateful for God’s patience.
Grateful for His guidance.
Grateful that He sees the entire story when we can see only a single page.
Thirty-six years ago, two people stepped into the waters of baptism on the same day.
They did not know each other.
They could not see the future.
They had no idea that God was preparing them for blessings they could not yet imagine.
But He knew.
And sometimes that is the greatest comfort of all. The Author sees the whole story long before we see the first page.