I met Erin Reeves throught the Internet in July 1996. I was browsing a page which belonged to someone who I knew through a theology listserv, and on a whim, as I thought, followed a link to a singles site.
Erin had her description there, and she sounded like someone I'd like to correspond with - she also said she was looking for "just a friend", and that sounded safe. I mailed her, introducing myself briefly, saying it looked like we had things in common, and mentioning that she could find out more about me on my pages.
We began a correspondence which has now run close to 1500 emails, many of them long and in considerable depth. We quickly became friends and discovered that we thought about things in a similar way and were interested in a lot of the same topics.
About July 1997, Erin's computer developed hard drive problems, and her emails became less frequent and actually stopped for a while. During this time, though, she sent me a tape, and hearing her warm, rich voice changed my perspective on her. I'd always felt an attraction to her, but had dismissed it as impossible, foolish, impractical. I found it harder to dismiss after the tape - but then we weren't in contact much, and she receded a little from my consciousness again. Even when her computer was fixed, she was busy and tired and couldn't mail me much. Throughout this time, I prayed for her, with more fervour than is usual for me, I didn't know why.
Then, in July 1998, she sent me an email in the middle of the night. She was depressed about her life, feeling like she was getting unattractive, afraid that she'd never find anyone who wanted to marry her - something we'd talked about a lot. I wrote back affirming her, saying (as I'd said on the tape I sent in response to hers) that I'd like to hold her and comfort her. This time, though, I acknowledged that that would be difficult for me - I'd probably want to do more than just hold her.
A few more mails went back and forth, and on the 8th of July I sent one, turned the computer off, stood up - and realised that I was in love with Erin. I thought about it all through that day (I was at home sick), and finally mailed her again confessing my feelings.
She replied, to my astonishment, that she felt the same, and in fact had wanted romance with me for about a year, but had never thought it would be possible. After that, the decisions were simple.
I flew to see her in late July, and we spent a week together. Everything was easy. We communicate very well, often thinking of the same thing at the same time - subtle signals are enough, often, between us. We're very relaxed and comfortable together. We trust each other. We can talk openly and honestly and without embarrassment about anything we need to discuss. Our life goals are compatible - closely compatible. We couldn't think of a reason not to get married.
So we've done that, on 5 February in Bakersfield, California (her home town). We had a second ceremony in Auckland (my home town), where we now live.
We're very happy, and very grateful to God. We have a theme quotation, from the 14th-century mystic Julian of Norwich's book Revelations of Divine Love, which expresses what we think about the whole sequence of events:
For I saw that God in fact does everything, however little that thing may be. Indeed, nothing happens by luck or chance, but all is through the foresight and wisdom of God. If it seems chance or luck to us, it is because we are blind and short-sighted. Things which God's wise foreknowledge saw before creation, and which he so rightly and worthily and constantly brings to their proper end in due time, break upon us suddenly and take us by surprise. And because of this blindness and lack of foresight we say they are chances and hazards. But they are not so to our Lord God.
Hence it follows that we must admit that everything that is done is well done, for it is our Lord God who does it.
Below: Our second wedding celebration in my mother's garden, with our pastor, Mark Pierson.
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