To read all of our love story, be sure not to miss these posts: Introduction Part One

I remember exactly where I was standing when a phone notification alerted me that the goofy-looking guy on the dating app had liked me back and sent me a message. “Huh,” I thought, and clicked over to see what Joel had said.

After exchanging a greeting, we immediately talked about faith. Someone with a strong faith was the #1 factor that both of us were looking for, which set me at ease to continue the conversation.

Then Joel told me something I wasn’t expecting: “I’m totally blind.”

Okay. I hadn’t known a whole lot of people who are blind or visually impaired, but I have known a few. I’ve seen how they are able to live independently, hold jobs, be married, raise children. This was not a dealbreaker to me and I was willing to see how things played out.

Joel next told me that he had been married before, but his wife had passed away two and a half years earlier due to a severe stroke. This also was not a dealbreaker, because I’d spent a great deal of time as an older single considering the fact that chances were good if I did meet someone that they would have been married before. Although I was saddened to hear he had gone through this tragic loss after sixteen years of marriage, it was actually a comfort to me to hear he had been happily and faithfully married for so long, because that meant he knew what it took to be married and he wanted to find a similar happiness with someone else. (Not that I as a never-married woman knew exactly what marriage was like, but I come from a tremendously large family and have lots of experience sharing life and close quarters with others so I feel like I had a better than average idea on the matter.)

It had been my practice in the online dating world to bring up dealbreakers sooner rather than later, and with Joel being so frank about himself, I was equally honest in sharing the things that were important to me. He said he was on board with all of them.

Then he asked me an endearing question: “Since I can’t see your picture, can I call you so I can hear your voice?”

It had not been my practice to give out my phone number after one brief conversation, but we’d both just told each other every hurdle we could immediately perceive and it hadn’t phased either one of us, and clearly this was a different situation. A few minutes later we were chatting on the phone, and things went well.

Very well. 😉

Before the end of that phone call, Joel was already talking about trying to meet in person. I knew this was going to be something of a challenge, because we lived four hours apart and only one of us could drive. But neither one of us saw any red flags, and as I mentioned before, both of us hung up thinking: “I think this might be the one that God has been preparing me for.”

As I said later, being in a relationship with a blind man is something I never saw coming—and neither did he. 😂 But I was willing to see what God was up to, even if it wasn’t what I had expected.

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