Sarah D. Shearer

Lucas is not what I would call my type.

And I have a type. Or I thought I did. When I was about 14, I started writing out a list of what I thought my type was. It was a very long list. As the years passed in wave after wave of complete and total singleness, I began to mark things off my list. I guess he doesn’t have to have dark, curly hair, and I suppose it’s okay if he doesn’t have eight siblings.  But he still needs to be able to speak Spanish, and he needs to be this age, and he needs to be this tall, and he needs to have this temperament.

More years passed, and me and my idea of my type became pretty lonely. At twenty-five I had yet to go on my first date or, gasp, have my first kiss. I had given God several and I mean several ideas of who he might have cross my path, but nothing was going according to plan. As my last viable option became an increasingly terrible option, I found myself quite discouraged.  I don’t see anyone that fits this list, God! All my ideas either got married or turned into jerks, and I just don’t see how you are going to manage this.

Enter Lucas. A casual friend on social media turned good friend via texting. I opened my heart to him because he wasn’t my type. He was safe. He was quiet, he didn’t have dark hair or any hair for that matter. He didn’t speak Spanish. He didn’t have a passel of siblings. He was, I repeat, not my type.

But as time passed, he became my type. We discovered we wanted the same things, valued the same things, and enjoyed many of the same things. Our friendship became the most important friendship in my life, and before I could point to a particular day or conversation or moment, I realized I loved him, and not just a little bit, but a lot.

I had several conversations with God about my list, and there were moments I wondered if I was compromising because he didn’t have all these ridiculous qualifications I had learned to idolize. Does he love Jesus, though? Well, yes. Does he want a big family, like you do? Yes! Is he incredibly kind and does he absolutely melt your heart every minute of every day? Yes, in fact, he does.

A long time ago a dear friend told me she dated her list and he broke her heart, and the man God brought her was nothing like she imagined and everything she needed. I took that to heart, and it turned out she was right.

I shudder to think what would have happened if I had not given my dear, sweet Lucas another look. If I had said no merely because he is not what I pictured.

I am the most blessed woman I know because of his love.

Sometimes I wonder if there is a singleness epidemic because we are all so dang egocentric. We think we know what we need, and we are robbing God of the opportunity to blow us away with his kindness because it doesn’t fit in our box.

Girls, narrow down your list, a lot. Be willing to take chances. Be willing to take a risk.

One year ago today, Lucas texted me and told me he would be in town the next week and asked if he could take me to lunch. We had known each other for years but had been texting long distance for several months. I had seen him in person once in the last five years, yet I felt like I knew him extremely well.  So Lucas drove down from Wisconsin and he took me to lunch at Longhorn and he told me he had feelings for me. (This was the first time a guy had ever told me he had feelings for me in 25 years.) He told me he was moving back to pursue me, and I said, “That sounds like a good idea,” as though he had offered me a business proposal. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I felt this deep peace that transcended my understanding.

So he pursued me, and I discovered that he was exactly who I never knew I needed.  

And to think I could have missed him, because he wasn’t my type.