I met her at a stoplight.

I had the windows rolled down to enjoy the cool weather, stereo off in a rare moment of silence. She pulled on my right in a forest green Jetta moments after I had stopped. I instantly knew she was a Christian, and not only that, but also Reformed. I’m not sure how I knew - I guess it was the Pedro the Lion album I heard coming from her speakers, or just that indefinable Reformed girl chic surrounding her appearance. Whatever the case, I wanted to get to know her.

I was new to town, and I hadn’t had a chance to check out the PCA church (two buildings down from the laundromat) that I had a good guess she went to. I usually visit a church before I move to an area, but I had left my last church pretty fast. You know how it is - sometimes you just can’t resolve issues, and it’s better to just leave.

It was about a girl, of course. All the big problems are. And the requisite male. Me.

It was just a mess, and I won’t gossip with you about all the details. Suffice it to say it was her first courtship, and her parents didn’t know the first thing. I don’t think they had even read Doug Wilson’s book before jumping in. I kept trying to show them the way they were going about it was all wrong, but things just spiraled downward.

Me, I’ve been in four courtships, including the one I just mentioned. That was Ashley, and there was also Katherine, Julie, and Fae.

Fae was my first. I was still living with my parents - I think I was 19 - and she was a new girl at the OPC church I had grown up in. She was perfect to my 19-year-old mind: hair shoulder-length and dark, body slim, posture straight and attentive during every sermon. We flirted after church each week, always in that “What did you think of the latest Chalcedon Report?” way that parents seem to find acceptable.

It was after two months of this that I decided to act. You know the drill, I assume. I talked to my father, we talked to Fae’s father, he talked to Fae.… And thus my first courtship began.

I thought it was perfect. Everything seemed to go right from the very beginning. Our families were always eating at each other’s houses, our flirting intensified, and I was beginning to think of a small October wedding. Then her father called everything off.

To this day, I don’t know why. He told me over lunch, and Fae avoided me from that time on - she didn’t even glance towards our pew. They left a month later, with the congregation’s opinion of them pretty low.

I was angry at the time, angry at her father. I felt he was completely unjustified and merely flexing his paternal muscles. I didn’t say anything at the time - but that was years ago and I think I can be honest with you.

Tim passed. Insert a shimmering whole-tone scale into your mental soundtrack. I had moved out, two states away from my hometown. I attended a local “independent” church. You know, the kind that meets in a gym and has more minivans in the parking lot than all the car dealers on Main Street combined. Everyone looked like homeschoolers at first glance. The men all had beards or that mustache that seems to abound in Baptist circles. The women and girls all wore jumpers, and the boys all wore plaid shirts tucked into pants pulled way too high on their waists. Not my kind of church, usually, but the only PCA church in the area had a minister whose name was Mary. You know how it is.

In this flurry of jean jumpers and minivans, I found Julie. Now that girl knew how to have a good time - her constant wisecracks drew me to her from day one. She managed to come up with a witty remark (or at least a silly face) to go along with anything that happened to come up. I knew before long that she was the one.

Well. It was the shortest courtship I ever had. I learned within weeks that she meant me to stay local - in fact, at the same church with her parents. I think she wanted a husband who would grow to become an elder in the church she knew and loved.

But there’s only so much you can take of those independent churches. She wouldn’t budge, so I did what I had to do. I left.

I heard last month that the church split and fell apart a year later. I guess it was to be expected. All churches have their problems, but that kind gets them the worst. I never heard what happened to Julie, or if she found the man she was looking for.

Now, the first courtship will always be foremost in your mind - you never forget the first girl you decide to love, and all that follow are judged according to her. Fae holds that place with me, but the girl I most wanted to be my wife, the girl I really, really regretted losing, was Katherine.

Katherine I met only two years ago, and the meeting is still fresh in my mind. I remember exactly how her head turned to look over her shoulder at me, three rows back, during church. I remember her dark red hair, always falling over her ears, and I remember the little motion of her hand pushing it out of the way. I remember the way she would get furious every time she heard of some new debacle on the news, and how I kept having to convince her it wasn’t worth her anger, that there was nothing we could do about it and it was better for her to concentrate on other things and let God take care of it. I can almost remember everything we said to each other while sitting on her parents’ couch - conversations of music and doctrine and children and everything life could be with us.

I suppose you already know how it turned out, if you’ve been listening. I guess it was simply too good to be true. That’s the way things are, sometimes.

It happened this way: her father talked to people about me, and discovered my past courtships. I guess he talked to Katherine and together they decided I wasn’t the one for her. They gave me their decision, and that was that. Nothing I could do or say changed their minds. It was almost a year before I could bring myself to look at another girl again.

So. For courtships. That brings me back to the stoplight, looking to my right at the girl in the Jetta playing a Pedro the Lion album. She wasn’t bad looking at all, and when she turned my way, I flashed a smile. Then the light was green and she left me in her dust.

I passed the town’s little PCA building on my way home. I thought: Maybe it’s time to pay the place a visit.

Ashley, Katherine, Julie, and Fae. I guess they were just God’s way of giving me a bit of practice before I found the one. Perhaps she’s the Jetta girl, perhaps some girl from a church I don’t even see in my future.

I’ll have to find out who the girl’s father is.