The Angelo Version:

I met Jodi in a divorce support class at Peachtree Presbyterian church in Buckhead at the beginning of 2022. My friend Ian invited me as a last-minute addition, and I joined the group unexpectedly just a few days before it started. Jodi was invited to the same group by the same person who invited Ian (who invited me). It made absolutely no sense for Jodi to travel an hour from where she lived in Sugar Hill to Buckhead to attend this group, but something in her heart told her she needed to be there.

The moment I met Jodi in group I could see that she was set apart. The spirit of the Lord burst out of her like the north star on the darkest of nights. When she spoke, her words balanced empathy, compassion, truth and grace in a way I had never seen before. Her love for the other group members was both immediate and palpable, so tangible you could almost hold it in your hands, and it was remarkably genuine. Jodi has a way of seeing us, knowing us at our core, meeting us exactly where we are, and authentically loving us in that place. As uncommon as these traits are, Jodi’s unique spiritual gift is the uncanny ability to convict us in truth without judgment and always inspire us to move closer to our Maker. Safety is at the core of any relationship with Jodi. The security of being loved as you are without the risk of compromising the truth or the concession of trading away who God designed you to be for who you are today. I have seen this play out so many times in so many relationships where the person on the other side of Jodi is afforded the most beautiful blend of grace and truth, allowing for an environment to share their demons in safety to slay them with the communal power of love. It is my absolute favorite thing about Jodi, recognizable from the moment she walks in a room, and one of the many characteristics that make her a five bagger!

Jodi entered my life at one of my lowest points. I was entangled in a bitter divorce, separated from my marital home and my children most of the time, and in the middle of a brutal legal battle between my old and new law firm. My professional career (and the careers of those who followed me) was in grave danger, and for the first time in my adult life, my problems were bigger than me. I couldn’t work my way out of this one. 10,000 billable hours couldn’t have put a dent in the legal fees being spent on the fight over my team and I had no ability to control my fate. I rarely heard God’s voice during these times, but when I did it was as clear as day: You have always lived like you were in control of your life. You have never relinquished all authority to Me. It is time to move over to the passenger seat and put your full faith and trust in Me. The mental vision I had during these times was of me lying in the middle of a dirt road with my body broken and battered, eyes swelled shut from some unnamed battle that nearly took my life. I was too weak and helpless to even crawl to the side of the road to get out of immediate danger. Jesus then approaches, lifts me up and effortlessly hoists me across his shoulders, barely breaking his stride. He then continues to walk down a road I cannot see to a destination I do not know. It is only through His strength that I am advancing and I must surrender to the truth that I will only go to where He takes me. It is not up to me.

I knew who Jodi was immediately, as though I had known her my entire life. I knew of her character, her wisdom and the safety of her love. I also knew that choosing Jodi would be the manifestation of the choice God had laid at my feet, to give up all control and follow Him.[1] To choose Jodi was to choose the course for the rest of my life. This likely sounds presumptuous, as though I knew that Jodi would choose me back. This is not what I am saying. Rather, a decision to pursue Jodi’s love, regardless of her reaction, was equivalent to declaring my decision to put ALL of my faith and trust in God and acknowledge fully who it is I belong to. Jodi had already made the decision to pursue God fully and only a man of the same ilk would be suitable for her. Let’ s face it, Jodi does not suffer fools!

At the time Jodi entered my life, I had not yet made the choice to surrender it all and knew I was not worthy of Jodi. As such, I did my best to ignore Jodi in class, observing her brilliance from a distance, secretly listening to every word she had to say while avoiding all eye contact and acting like I didn’t know she was there. It was not until five months after class started, right near the end of the support program on May 11, 2022, that I finally popped the question and asked Jodi “would you like to be my friend?” The premise of the friendship proposal was to build a foundation of trust by committing to bear our souls to each other such that we would fully be known by the other. Known in a way that people don’t often know each other. One week later, Jodi said yes!

And so it began, we formed the strongest of friendships over texts and weekly coffees and we meticulously uncovered and examined every aspect of each other’s lives. We would take turns asking the most intimate questions of the other, no holds barred, no stones unturned, and no ability to opt out. By way of example, the first questions I asked Jodi were how did she come to know she loved God and did she ever question his existence? When I say deep, I’m talking to the earth’s core! The examiner was always more comfortable than the examined and we were both eager to be the one asking the questions but we would each willingly sit in the hot seat when it was our turn. Through this process, we discovered how similar we are to each other, how perfectly matched we were to support one another, and we became best friends.

Despite finding Jodi to be incredibly beautiful, I fought to protect our friendship with all of my strength. Our time together was sacred and I didn’t want to ever do anything to put it or our friendship at risk. We met in the mornings over coffee, spoke on the phone, and texted like 13-year-old girls at sleep away camp. All the while we kept any element of romance out of our relationship, not even a hint of it. At one point, Jodi asked me if I was still interested in meeting with her after misreading my guardrails for disinterest. Little did she know that spending time with her was always the highlight of my week.

I was an oak, impenetrable! I had church and state separated to perfection, never even letting my mind wander to any what ifs, just enjoying my friend and the freedom to share our lives together. That is until one morning when all the walls came crashing down. During one of our routine morning coffees, Jodi and I suddenly stopped talking and stared into each other’s eyes for what felt like several minutes. In these moments, I experienced the true, unadulterated and fully exposed Jodi for the first time. It was supernatural. In this moment, not only did I see Jodi, her hurts, her fears, her love, but I knew who she was to me and understood the depth of my love for her. Everything changed for me in that moment. Looking back on it now, I see that this moment was the culmination of a growing undeclared love that had been unthawing my heart for months like the flow of water gradually carving out a riverbed. In that moment, however, it was sudden, explosive, and shocking. I knew that Jodi was my soulmate, and we would be together forever.

I’ll tell you the rest of the story in France!

[1] An interesting aside here for us to debate one late night in France over a fine bottle of wine (or cognac) is what choice I had in the matter. In my vision with Jesus picking me up and carrying me to my destination, I had no control over the matter, it wasn’t up to me. I was incapacitated and Christ intervened. Yet, I believe I did have a choice at this crossroad in my life. The choice was to live the life God designed for me or die on the road I created for myself.