<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Here's one reliable sign I'm in a good place: I'm always happy to come home after being away, whether I've been up in Chicago or visiting Portland, Oregon. </span>

<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">This glad-to-be-back maxim was really put to the test last week, when Jason and I returned from our 10-day honeymoon in Greece. It's very, very beautiful and delicious in Greece—I can't stress that enough—but home was still sweet home. Several people I know who still can't believe they live in East Central Illinois fall into deep depressions upon returning to town. Whatever it is they long for—the big city, mountains, oceans, an extended family—</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">just isn't here</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">.</span>

For me, the good feelings don't hinge on geography as much as they do people. Which is really just another way of talking about love, isn't it?

Jason and I have a love story that  I'm pretty sure can stand up to just about any other. Back when I was in the midst of my despair about being "trapped" in Champaign-Urbana, my hopelessness had a tendency to hover annoyingly around the unlikelihood of meeting the man of my dreams in this isolated, limited pool.

Think about it. I'm in my 30s, divorced, with two young children. I'm a Christian, and my faith is important to me, but I also thrive on being a bit of a bad girl (in other words, I'm not looking for a good boy). I like to party, have fun, put back some drinks. I love music and live shows and dancing. And I'm "stuck" in Champaign-Urbana, so I have to meet someone who's okay with that.

If you put all those factors together, throwing in a few extra hopes along the way, here's the singles ad you would get: "Thirty-something woman with two young children seeks handsome, tall, dark, thirty-something man who loves kids, wants an instant family, goes to church, knows how to have fun on a Saturday night, and is generally a social, successful, hip, big-city type who is perfectly happy to remain in a small Midwestern town for the next 10+ years."

Can you imagine my hopelessness? If you subtract the old, married, tenured professors from the equation, you're left with a town full undergrads (read: frat boys) and people just passing through. I began to systematically think through which dream man requirements I could do without. Christian, but not a whole heck of a lot of fun? Smart and fun but agnostic? Smart and successful, but scared to death of kids? Handsome and great with kids, but not too bright? I didn't want to sacrifice anything, but I figured that was my lot.

Then Jason walks into my life. We meet at church, no less. (For a few months, Ellen and Dorie knew Jason simply as "the cute boy from church.") He's miraculously all the things specified in my hypothetical singles ad, PLUS he cooks, dances, and has a wonderful extended family. The most surprising and mysterious blessing of all is Havah, Jason's daughter, who is two years older than my oldest, and looks as much like a biological sister to my two girls as any true biological sister could.

This is my love story, of course, so I'm particularly fond of it. But after hearing it, can you possibly doubt there is a God in heaven? I rest my case.

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