My sweet bloggy friends, Rachel and Mr. Daddy over at Once Upon a Miracle have been playing a game called True Story Tuesday. It can be any kind of story: funny, crazy, random – just the kind that people say, “Nu-uh – that did NOT happen!” Join the fun!

Each week the 850 mile (round trip) rides to Greeley for Isaiah’s casting have allowed me to pray alot and think about some fun True Story Tuesday stories. Today I am going to share a story that was just crazy, wild and almost downright unbelievable. You know how they say, “It’s such a small world?”

I am changing every detail so as not to offend the parties involved should they happen to stumble upon A Place Called Simplicity. In changing the names and details, I promise I will not compromise the crazy story itself. Wait till ya’ hear this….

We were in one of our previous pastorates. (How’s that for vague?) Dw, being the senior pastor, expressed a need for a professional to work with the church as an outsider. This person would not be on our staff, but hired to do some much needed specialty work.

One of the men on our Servant’s Council board said, “Hey, I have a friend who would be perfect. He does such-n-such and you are not going to believe this Dw, but he is grew up in the same area as you!” (We will call the man from outside the church, Tom.)

We were like, “Nu-uh!” The man on our board called Tom and explained the situation. Tom said he would be happy for the church to hire him to help. A meeting was set up at our home, with the board present and Tom. Dw and I were so excited to meet Tom. He was from the very area where Dw grew up, I mean, come on, that is just too crazy!!

Finally the night came and Tom and the board came to our home. The meeting was taking place in the kitchen and I was tending to all our little ones. Eventually almost everyone left, the kids were in bed so I came out to meet Tom. Dw and I and Tom talked for a long time. He had indeed, grown up only 13 miles from Dw!!

We laughed and had the greatest time. He was so personable – it felt like we had known him for years and years. Since the town he had grown up had a college I asked if he had stayed at home and attended college in that town? He said, “No, I went to Stony Point.” I was like, “No way! What years were you there? Because my boyfriend, Robert, that I had dated in high school, had gone to Stony Point.” He said, “NO WAY! I was there in blah-blah-blah.” I was like, “That’s exactly when Robert was there!”

I was racking my brain to remember anymore details, and finally thought of the dorm my old high school boyfriend had lived in. (My mom had driven me to visit him for a day once when he first got there.)

I said, “Robert had lived in East dorm.” He said, “That’s where my girlfriend (who is now my wife) had lived.” Dw and I were laughing, as was Tom, at all the places we had sort of crossed paths in our lives. Tom said, “I have to ask my wife, Trixie, if she remembers Robert.” So he got out his notebook and wrote down Robert’s full name.

After Tom left that night Dw and I talked extensively about Tom. We had been very lonely in that pastorate (it is a myth that senior pastors have so many friends they don’t know what to do and truthfully, pastoring, at times can be the most lonely job in the world!). We had clicked so well with Tom, we just thought, “what if the Lord has provided some new friends, who we have some (albeit minimal) connection with from our past?” We could not wait to meet Trixie and see Tom again, we were thinking we would ask if they would like to go have dinner with us.

About a week or two later we were supposed to go to Tom’s office (which was in his home) to talk to him again to pick up some paperwork from him. We could hardly wait – we would hopefully get to meet Trixie since it was at their home. We were both really excited to get there. I also was dying to know if Trixie had known Robert in college. What a small world that would be!!

Now to give you a bit more background into the story…..I had dated Robert for about 18 months in high school. He was a year older than me and had gone off to Stony Point when I was entering my senior year. One day I was walking to my Chemistry class, after he had gone to college and a girl I had never seen before walked up to me and said, “You are dating Robert Blank right?” I looked at her wondering what she wanted. I said, “Yes.” She said, “Yeah, well he has a girlfriend at college and is cheating on you.” Wow, talk about getting kicked in the gut. That blindsided me and pretty much ended my relationship with Robert.

So anyway, here we are ringing the doorbell at Tom and Trixie’s house. We were so excited. Tom opened the door and you would have guessed we had just entered the Artic Circle. The cold blast that greeted us as Tom barely smiled. Dw and I were like, “What in the world?”

Tom had come home from his meeting us and walked in the door from our very lively and fun conversation and was all excited to see if Trixie had known this Robert person while at Stony Point and said, “Hey honey, while you were living in East Hall at Stony Point did you ever know a guy named Robert Blank?” All color had drained from Trixie’s face and there was no denying that her expression was one of being so busted by her adoring and faithful husband. After keeping a secret for 20+ years the truth had finally spilled out. Tom had had a hard time dealing with this now exposed secret after believing that his sweet wife had never, ever, ever, ever been involved with anyone but him – after all they were childhood sweethearts!!

Amazing??!! Incredible!!! We never did become friends with them. I guess we represented (albeit in a bizarre and unsuspecting way and with no fault of ours) deep pain from their past. Big bummer, we think we could have been really good friends.

And on a final note, let me just say: A few years later our paths crossed for one more brief meeting with Tom. Once again, there was a weird, true story of a different sort with a randomly bizarre twist. I will share that story next week. xo