How do you know?

There are many many things I love about this article: One date wonder. The first of which is that it is a man calling for more courtship.

But what he says makes so much sense. Two people do need time to get to know each other. People are different at different times (women especially, we change depending on what week of the month it is). Some people are different at different times of the year. If you know a person just a few weeks or a couple of months, what can you really know about them? I'm not saying you need to know someone for years and decades though either. There is a happy medium.

A friend of mine recently asked me how I knew I wanted to pursue things with the boyfriend, how I knew things would work out. It's an interesting question. And as I tried to think of an answer, I actually realized that I did it the same way I've known other things.

I loved the talk given in the April 2008 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints by Elder Carlos A. Godoy of the Seventy - Testimony as a Process. In it he describes how a testimony is rarely the result of a singular event. Rather it is an accumulation of small events that build on each other until we know. That is how we gain a testimony, through a series of events.

As I thought about it, that's how I know what I know about this relationship. I can, actually, point to a few specific moments where I've had a feeling from heaven that things could very well work out, and I've kept those to myself. But it isn't because of those moments that I want things to work out. It's been a series of small events. It's the quirky names he calls me. It's the questions he asks and how he really does want to know what I think. It's putting his arm around me at church or holding my hand when we go to the temple. It's taking me for ice cream when I've had a real crappy day, or even when I've had some great news I want to celebrate. It's all of these moments, and so many more, that make me know I want it to work out. And it's all of these moments that make me know, more than signs from heaven, that it really could work out.

Lately I absolutely love this song. This is what I want, to be in love with my best friend. And that only comes with time.



Another line I love is "lucky to be coming home again." It reminds me of a line from Finding Nemo when Dory says, "I look at you, and I... and I'm home." I think that's part of love, that feeling of being home. And that too can only come with time, from building on small moments together.