Fourteen years ago today, I married the love of my life. Like everyone else, we’ve had our ups and downs, but looking back, we wouldn’t change a thing. We’ve had a lot of disagreements, discussions, and disappointments…but we’re also each other’s cheerleader, ‘go to’ person for advice, and at the end of the day, we’re best friends. Here’s the story of  how I knew it was the right move, and I never looked back.

When Jimmy and I met, we lived 1,4oo miles apart. We spent a week together, and I left Missouri knowing that I would be putting the wheels in order to move back.

I was tired of the heat, the traffic, and the bright lights of the Big City. I wanted to live in a small town again, where you ran into people you knew in the store,  life moved at a slower pace, and if you need help, people are there.

I had become de-sensitized: fatality accidents were huge inconveniences that snarled traffic; billboards with girls’ behinds were such a familiar part of the landscape that we didn’t even notice them anymore. A homeless man lived behind our dumpster where I worked; two strip clubs were on the same street, we regularly had lunch or dinner at the neighborhood casinos, and it was just all part of a normal day in a large tourist city.

I wanted to be offended again.

So to move back home, near where I grew up, solidly in the Bible belt, was a no-brainer.  I was already ready to leave. It was not a surprise to me.

Plus, it seemed that once Jimmy and I met, it was almost as if we had stepped on an escalator…things just kept falling into place. It was easy, and it was happening without any effort on our part.

Not everyone felt that way, however.

My friends and family were shocked. After all, I’d lived there for eleven years: at that time, it was a third of my lifetime.

What did I think I was doing, moving back home to be with someone I’d only just met?

Never mind that my parents basically did the same thing…this was different. I was their daughter. And the baby of the family.

The morning after one particularly painful discussion with my mother, I was on the freeway headed to work. I had about a 25-minute commute to the other side of town, plenty of time to think.

I was teary and fragile, struggling to keep myself together. Doubt had crept in.

I did the only thing I could do: I prayed.

“God, I really feel like this is the right thing to do, but everyone’s questioning me and I don’t know what to do. Please, help me! Give me a sign that what I’m doing is the right thing! I need a sign!”

(I’m a big believer in signs.You might have picked this up by now.)

No sooner than I finished speaking, it dawned on me that the silence in my car was oppressive. I had been listening to a local country radio station, but suddenly, there was no music. Like, for several seconds.

Just dead air space.

Seconds went by.

Suddenly a Leann Rimes song came on the radio that I’d never heard before: