Yesterday morning, at the Smart Marriages conference in San Francisco, I stopped in the hotel hallway to read a poster inviting participants to screen a new movie. Another conference attendee came up beside me and leaned around to see my name tag. "Himes," he said. "Hmmm," he paused. "Did you write a dissertation?" "Yes," I replied. "That was 18 years ago!" "It was about Crabb's book on marriage, right?" "Yes." "You wrote the study guide, too. You're the only other person I know who actually demonstrated the effectiveness of his material. I supervise graduate students at my school (a small university in Canada). I have only one methodological improvement I would have made: have someone besides yourself run the group. But other than that...."
"I'm blown away," I said. "You're the only person I've met who actually read my dissertation. I always thought it would just remain that small black volume on a library shelf, except for the study guide version. Isn't this amazing that we would cross paths here?"
An unexpected encounter...and an unexpected blessing.
