I’ve been blessed to live with Desiree for five years this May.  She is incredible: a woman of deep faith in Christ who sincerely loves people.  As an obsessive-compulsive, I have been incredibly grateful to have a roommate like Des, who reminds me of the truth and who lifts me up in prayer.

Des is a math teacher, and it is so refreshing to see someone who is enraptured with mathematics and who intensely cares about the kids she teaches.  Des is a thinker, a student of the Word, but she can also be crazy-silly.  When, like me, you have lived with someone you adore for this long, you begin to think so similarly that you have inside jokes of which you can barely remember the origin.  I love that.

Here is how Desiree and I ended up living together.  I love telling this story.

Des was the leader of a club at the college where I recruit, and I was the advisor, so we ended up meeting from time to time to talk about “club business”– which usually meant a couple minutes on club business and then catching up the rest of the time.  After I’d known her for a couple years, my living situation was about to change, and I was intrigued when I realized that I wanted her to be my roommate.

I didn’t know what she would think of this idea.  After all, she was a college student, and I was on staff at her school.  I decided I’d sneakily broach the subject during our next coffee date.

Des walked into Caribou that night, and the first thing she said was, “I’m living with you next year.”

Yes, you read that right.

“Funny you should say that …” I said.  The rest is history.

Thank you, God.

Photo credit: Ryan Murray