A few weeks ago, as I was driving an 18-year-old girl home from a church activity, she asked me how I knew that Adam was the man I wanted to marry. It’s a heavy question coming from anyone, but as one of her church leaders, I felt especially impressed to think carefully about my answer. I knew she was graduating from high school and would be dating more as she went off to college. I wanted my answer to matter, and I wanted it to be something she would hopefully remember down the road.

So I told her:

He was nice.

I laughed, and she did too, at its simplicity. But then I explained further. “He wasn’t just nice. It wasn’t a superficial quality about him. It’s who he was and IS. He wasn’t just nice to me, either. He was nice to his sister and his nieces and nephews. He was nice to his friends and his teachers – he was nice to people he didn’t know.”

And then I told her: “Ultimately, it came down to the fact that I knew he was the kind of man I would want raising my children.”

I hope those two answers were easy enough for her to understand. I hope she takes those words and uses them as a measurement for the kind of men she dates and looks to marry.

I was right, you know? Back then, when I decided to marry him. I knew he’d be a nice guy, for the rest of his life, to me and to his children. I knew he would be the perfect father to our children. I knew he’d play and teach and hold and comfort and kiss and giggle and read and discipline and love with a gentle heart. I knew it, and I was right.