- Good evening.

My piece tonight is entitled Serendipity.

Now y'all, I have a confession.

Okay.

I must begin by admitting that near the end of last year, I almost missed the moment that made me believe again in serendipity, that I could cross paths with someone truly special in an unexpected way and change my outlook on the world.

I am the mother of a precocious middle schooler.

Her name is Hope.

I am a professor at a leading HBCU, the real HU.

I am a minister at my local church.

I am a loving friend.

I'm a devoted sister.

I love my life full and hectic.

And to add to that list, I'm genuinely a creative individual.

I like to write inspirational poetry.

I am a fashion addict.

Thank you for the compliments on the boots, y'all.

You made a girl feel wonderful.

My social media content covers all of the above.

I revel in being booked and busy.

My pace is get here by six, stop there by noon, meeting new people, learning new things, teaching phenomenal college students.

It's my purpose.

I love it.

And I want to be integrated into everything that I do where I live, work, and work and minister.

The worship, the experience, the movement of my life keeps me curious and helps me feel a sense of belonging and togetherness, especially because my relationship status is that of single, or should I say divorced.

Yes, y'all, I'm a divorced woman.

I have been since 2018.

I married in my early 20s.

And the interesting thing about someone like myself who's called into ministry and divorced is that one immutable classification of being divorced can feel like a nail in the coffin.

Others have prepared for you even in 2026.

Truthfully, society is pretty progressive about divorce, but there are many people of faith who view divorce under any circumstances as the wrong thing to do.

It can mean isolation.

It can mean ostracizing in church circles.

And I don't dispute their interpretations.

Everyone has the right to worship as they see fit and practice their beliefs as they see fit.

This nevertheless means that since my divorce, I have been on the receiving end of conversations that made me realize there are people who wholeheartedly disqualify me, not only as an active leader of the faith, but even as someone who could be loved again by a spouse all because of my classification, divorced.

For a loving person like me, that would mean a pretty dismal future.

Therefore, in 2018, I had to make a decision pretty quickly.

I had to decide that I wasn't going to subscribe to this view.

I was going to continue to care for people.

I was going to continue to serve in ministry roles.

And now at 41, I see the fruit of living my life.

And I've been hopeful about romance.

Now, in full transparency, depending on where I was in my healing process, I may have made the declaration once or twice or three or four or five times when asked by friends and family about marriage.

I will never, ever, ever under any circumstances do that again, especially with the dismay I felt after a few attempts of just trying to get out of the talking stages with guys that I had met.

Finding that special someone, it's hard.

Most single people I'm sure can relate.

But as time passed, I found myself wondering and praying about the possibility of romantic love again with the right person.

After much soul searching, my earnest prayers and the last two years transformed from give me the person I want to help me to know who I am, help me to learn myself.

And then I ultimately decided I did have the courage to love again if it was right.

Now, while shopping in a local Christian bookstore this past summer, the timeliness of my new outlook showed itself.

It was confirmed by a clerk who asked me if I wanted to be married again.

The question caught me off guard because I was in a rush and I thought it was personal.

I thought it was a bit nosy, but I said, okay, yeah, with the right person, if it's right, I would get married again.

The clerk grinned at me and said, good, be open.

I ensured her, yes, I will.

And I checked out.

A few weeks later, I was busy working on my laptop, swapping between taking care of work stuff and church stuff when I received a call about a message I had not seen in my inbox from a church member.

Now I went immediately into ministry mode.

Did I need to do a hospital visitation?

Did I need to offer some words of prayer?

But as the church member continued to speak, I started to giggle.

This church member was playing matchmaker and had someone they wanted to connect me to and I was so booked and busy that like I revel, I did not see the attempts.

And as they continued to talk, unsure of what all of this could really be, I was hesitant, but then I heard the words of the nosy store clerk be open.

So I said, okay, you can connect us.

The church member assured me, you're going to like this person.

It was someone who had similarities to myself.

They were educated, established in their career, committed to ministry service.

So I said, okay, you have my permission.

You can share my social media information.

That seemed pretty reasonable enough.

Well, they say it always goes down in the DMs.

That's what they say.

The following day I received the first direct message on IG.

His salutation introduced himself, popped into my inbox and okay, I had a small twinge of excitement.

And while we were messaging, I casually revealed that I had glanced, just glanced at his profile posts and noticed his birthdate.

It appeared to be the same as my daughter's.

He confirmed the date and it indeed was.

It was remarkable.

He shared a birthdate with my middle schooler, my hope.

Our conversation transitioned from social media to phone pretty quickly and then we realized so many more similarities.

We're both divorced.

We both love dogs.

He has three.

I have two.

We both come from large families.

He has five siblings.

I have four.

We both enjoy historical television shows, Bridgerton.

We both love sushi.

We both love island vacations.

We both drive BMWs.

We both drive blue BMWs.

But even with the deeper connections and the practice of our faith, the comfort of hymns and gospel songs, they feel are text threads.

We both serve in ministry.

So we talk about the value of prayer and meditation.

We've both been vulnerable explaining our healing process after our divorces.

He's incredibly kind and thoughtful and it is reassuring that even as a mother, he celebrates my role as a mom.

Now our journey is just beginning, but in the past few months, I'm in awe of how quickly life has revealed.

It's unpredictable as it is rewarding, all because of who we can share it with.

The chance encounter restored hope that someone is indeed out there possibly in the world for me and hope can come through so many things, the unique gifts of conversation, laughing together, connecting around shared experiences and newfound love in new worlds.

I'm discovering now what it means to be brave, braver than I've ever been before and define my life after divorce on my own terms and yes, to have an open heart.

I wish I could say with absolute certainty where we will be a year from now that I don't know in all honesty, but what I do know is that I'm loving all the possibilities that a healthy relationship could bring.

And the joy of this experience has been summed up in one remarkable word, serendipity.

Thank you.