It’s just lunch, I told myself. Not a real date. I slid the hangers across the bar of my closet as I rated each outfit. Too stuffy. Out-of-style. A date? I hadn’t had one of those for two years. I’d sworn off dating after my last marriage fell apart—my second marriage to fail. I just didn’t trust myself. Things had gone so terribly wrong I didn’t think I could even make a choice anymore. One afternoon two years later I confided my disillusionment to a friend.

“Write down on a sheet of paper all of the qualities you want in a husband. Pray over it and put it in a special box. Then trust God to choose someone for you,” she suggested. So I did. I made my list, folded it up, put it in my cedar jewelry box and prayed without much hope. I’d always seen myself happily married, chasing kids around a backyard. Here I was, 39, alone and about to meet a guy I barely knew, for lunch.

Friends said I was a “young-looking” 39, but your age is your age. I stepped back from my closet with a dark-olive top and silk pants, brushed my hair, freshened my lipstick and wondered, What am I doing?

As I drove to the restaurant, I thought about the guy I was meeting. We’d been introduced a few weeks before at a friend’s place. We only chatted briefly, but he seemed nice, with dark eyes and an easygoing manner. I didn’t think much of it until a week later when the phone rang. “It’s Michael,” he said. I was a little surprised to hear from him, but his friendly manner quickly put me at ease.

A few calls later, he suggested we get together. “I don’t date,” I said. I took a breath and laughed nervously. “I’ve had some bad experiences. I want to build a friendship first.”

“Then let’s be friends,” he replied.

We talked every other day. He seemed too good to be true: He had a promising career in counseling. He sang in the choir at his country church. He didn’t drink. All the qualities I’d put on the list. But I tried not to get my hopes up. There was an unknown: I’d only seen Michael that one time, but I remembered he looked younger than I was.

I pulled into the parking lot and glimpsed him standing in front of the restaurant, with a boyish grin. Yep, I thought as I walked toward the breezeway, definitely younger. “Good to see you,” he said. He held the door for me. “I’m glad you suggested Bellini’s. It’s my favorite.”

“Mine too,” I agreed. “Let’s go dutch.”

“Out of the question,” he said. “Since I invited you, it’s on me.”

His manners impressed me, but I still wasn’t sure what I was doing there. I picked at my shrimp piccata. We talked about a lot of things—music, books we loved, even spiritual stuff. I’d never met a man who was so comfortable talking about his faith. I felt relaxed around him. When we finished, he paid the tab and left a generous tip.

“Let’s do this again,” he said, walking me to my car. “My 10-year reunion’s coming up this weekend, but maybe we could do something next weekend?”

I did the math. Ten-year COLLEGE reunion? That would make him 32. Maybe 35, if he got a graduate degree. Or 10-year HIGH SCHOOL reunion? He’d only be 28. I ran the numbers over and over in my head. Best case scenario, he’s only a few years younger. Worst case, 12. I could’ve been his babysitter! 

“Call me,” I said. “Thanks for a great lunch.”

I sighed deeply as I slid behind the wheel of my car. How could he be the one? He would want a younger woman he could start a family with. Not me.

That evening I slipped on my pajamas, curled up on the couch and flipped channels aimlessly. After the news, I padded into my bedroom and dug into my closet for my cedar jewelry box.

Nestled inside under a silver band my grandfather had given me was a sheet of paper. The list. I unfolded it and reread the qualities I’d chosen for a mate two years earlier: “honest, loyal, sober, happy, enjoys singing, shares readily, generous, educated, financially secure, emotionally open, churchgoing, laid back, interested in building a family, and within three years of my age.” Michael had all the traits—but one. And that would end up being the deal breaker.

He called a few times the next week, but I made excuses to avoid him. Finally, he caught me on my cell Thursday afternoon. “Meet me at the movies tonight? The new Shrek is playing.”

I tried to make myself say “no,” but the truth was that I really wanted to see him. We got tickets, got some popcorn and found seats. “So, was it fun to be back on your college campus?” I tried to sound nonchalant as I sipped my diet soda.

“Nah. I decided not to go,” he confessed. “And it was my high school reunion.” The lights dimmed and the previews began. I couldn’t concentrate. The calculator whirred in my mind. In the dimness I could see him laughing at the screen, that nice easy laugh I liked, but the confirmation of our age difference soured my mood. Besides, it was a cartoon. Movies I liked had human actors.

“I always catch the new Simpsons episode on Sunday evenings,” he said as we walked out of the theater, stunned that I wasn’t into animation.

“Everyone likes The Simpsons.”

I wanted to shout at him. Everyone your age!

“Next time, you pick the movie,” he offered as we walked to my car. Next time? What was I doing?

That night I reread the list, again. For two years, I’d prayed for God to send me the man of my dreams. No, not even the man of my dreams. Just a man who made sense for me.

And now that he’d answered that prayer, there was something terribly wrong, not about the guy but about me. I was a much older woman. Michael seemed to be everything I wanted. But what would he think when he found out the truth about my age?

We talked nearly every day. He was a good companion, a friend. I could feel myself falling in love with him and he seemed to care about me. He suggested having a picnic and watching Fourth of July fireworks together. I knew I’d have to clear the air. I punched in Michael’s number that morning and paced around the kitchen as I waited for him to pick up.

“Michael,” I took a deep breath, “do you know how old I am?”

“No,” he answered. “Not really.” I heard a hint of confusion in his voice.

“I’m going to be 40.” Silence. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight,” he replied, almost nonchalantly. “Where’s this going, Stephanie?”

“I just think you should be clear on our age difference before it goes any farther.”

“O-kay.…” Michael said. “We’re still going to see the fireworks, right? Pick you up at five?”

At sunset, Michael and I drove to the church parking lot. We found a spot on a hill, spread out a blanket and unpacked the picnic basket. “I know you’re concerned about our age difference,” he said, putting his hand on my arm, “but I’m not. I’ve prayed for a wife. I don’t want to be too bold, but I think you might be just that someone.”

The first fireworks popped in the night sky. My heart leaped. Michael had been praying for me while I prayed for him? He wrapped his fingers around mine as we watched the brilliant colors burst across the darkened canvas of sky.

You know what? I still think cartoons are for kids, but I’ve come to appreciate the chance to curl up on the couch every Sunday night with Michael to watch The Simpsons.

My husband, Michael. Our 5-year-old daughter, Micah, has been put to bed and if I doze off it’s usually with a smile on my face, because I’m happier than I’ve ever been, happier than I knew was possible.

The man I married is everything I prayed for—with only one slight difference that turned out to matter, but not in the way I’d thought. Our age difference was an issue, not between Michael and me, but between God and me. It was a challenge to my trust in him to answer my prayers perfectly.

Download your FREE ebook, A Prayer for Every Need, by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale

Let me begin by introducing you to Mighty Maximus Slattery—better known as Max. Max is not like most dogs. Pointers, for example, point. Retrievers retrieve. Hounds hunt.

These highly talented and useful breeds behave this way because they are all, as my husband Tom likes to say, real dogs.

Max is a pug. A roly-poly, fawn-colored pug that excels at sleeping, eating and making us laugh. When we first brought Max home as a 10-week-old ball of fluff, we knew from the dog book that pugs were classified as having “fair intelligence” and being only “moderately trainable.”

But over time we were delighted to discover that Max would do practically anything for a treat. He quickly acquired a repertoire of tricks, including “Roll Over,” “Spin Around,” “Bow” and “Dancey-Dancey.”

Max has other talents, too. We call them his “special abilities,” like the characters have on the TV show Heroes. For some inexplicable (and delicious) reason, Max smells like Fritos corn chips. He also possesses the uncanny power, at will, to utterly undo us—like Antonio Banderas’s “Puss in Boots” character in the Shrek cartoons—when he cocks his head and makes his bottomless black eyes go all big and sad.

Apparently Max was born with an over-abundance of something zoologists actually call the “cute factor.” With his large round head, flat face, floppy ears, and big front-facing eyes, Max ranks right up there in animal kingdom cuteness with pandas, koala bears and baby seals. But other than being irresistibly cute, what good is a pug?

Keep that thought in mind as I tell you my story…

It hadn’t been a good week. A freakish tropical storm in Connecticut where we live had caused the gutters on our old house to overflow, which in turn caused a flood in our basement, including the carpeted rec room.

I was also anxiously awaiting—okay, worrying obsessively about—test results for a recent CT Scan of Tom’s lungs. A month earlier, he had briefly been hospitalized with what was originally diagnosed as pneumonia. Now the doctor said he wasn’t sure. Maybe it was something else. Something serious.

Then I lost my keys. Well I didn’t actually “lose” my keys. They vanished. One minute they were on the kitchen table next to my grocery list, securely attached to a brown braided-leather key chain. And when I looked again, after a veritable swarm of gutter and carpet cleaners arrived all at the same time, Poof! the keys were gone.

For the next two hours, I turned the house upside down and inside out looking for my keys. First, I got down on my hands and knees and scanned the kitchen floor. Nothing.

Then I dumped and scrutinized the contents of my purse. Twice. Yes, I checked my pockets. And yes, I checked the car. And although I knew it made no sense, I also checked the refrigerator, freezer, pantry and oven.

I called my friend Sara, and told her what had happened and asked her if she would please say a little prayer—for the missing keys, and for Tom’s test results. Which she did, right there over the phone. Praying helped me feel a bit less anxious about Tom—but did nothing for my state of mind about the keys.

As I hung up the phone, I was seized by an unpleasant thought: What if one of the workers took the keys?

Frantic, I phoned Tom at work, and in a rush of words told him what had happened.

“You’d better call a locksmith,” he said calmly.

So I did. At least now we didn’t have to worry about being robbed.

Days passed. But I couldn’t stop wondering about the missing keys. In my mind’s eye, I could picture the brown braided-leather key chain so clearly—feel its supple softness, worn smooth as a pebble after years of being tumbled around my purse.

The keys were the first thing I thought of in the morning, and the last thing I thought of before going to sleep. Where could they have gone?

A week later on Saturday afternoon, Tom was standing in the kitchen doorway with dog leash in hand.

“Can you believe the way those keys never turned up?” I asked him.

“Good thing we had the locks changed,” he said. “Max and I are going for a walk. Wanna come?”

“Sure.”

On this particular walk, Max assumed his usual pokey pace, meandering along the sidewalk, stopping to sniff (endlessly) every tree trunk, utility pole and fire hydrant along the way.

We strolled past our neighbors’ homes, and then crossed the street, where an empty house was undergoing a renovation. The yard was overgrown and unkempt, littered with lumber and bricks.

Abruptly, Max veered off the sidewalk, and onto the overgrown lot, tugging fiercely on his leash.

“No, no, Max,” I said. “Stay on the sidewalk.”

He regarded me imploringly with his Antonio Banderas eyes, and pulled harder, suddenly lurching forward onto the lawn, and flopping down on his belly, with his legs splayed out. Panting, he closed his eyes and luxuriated in the cool softness of the tall grass and weeds.

“C’mon, Max,” I pleaded, pulling his leash.

Stubbornly he resisted, and became 20 unmovable pounds of dead weight as he pressed his black velvet chin even more firmly into the ground.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into him,” said Tom. “I guess we’d better pick him up and go home.”

As I bent down to pick Max up, I glimpsed something buried deep in the weeds next to Max’s head, something that looked very much like a bit of brown braided-leather.

No, I thought. This can’t be possible.

I tugged gently, as though pulling a small carrot out of the ground, and there they were, covered with dirt. My keys.

“Oh, my gosh!” I yelped. “I can’t believe it!”

I screamed so loudly that pedestrians across the street looked over with alarm. “No problem!” I called to them, grinning ecstatically, dangling the keys in the air. “Our dog found my keys!”

They must have thought I was crazy. And for a moment, I wondered if I was. How in the world did Max, a dog who barely had a nose, let alone a sense of smell, manage to lead us precisely to this tiny patch of weeds and grass?

“Good dog!” I picked Max up and buried my face in his soft fur.

He waggled his cinnamon-bun tail and snorted happily.

As the three of us turned and headed toward home, Tom speculated that perhaps the keys had, indeed, been taken by one of the workers.

“It would have been nice,” Tom smiled wryly, “if Max could have found the keys before we changed the locks.”

Later that afternoon, the phone rang. It was the doctor with good news. The CT Scan had revealed that Tom was healing nicely after all. Not to worry, the doctor said. Tom would be fine.

That night, as I lay in bed, I thought back over the week and remembered my prayer over the telephone with my friend, Sara.

Oh, Kitty, I heard God’s whisper. When will you learn to stop worrying and trust me? You know I always hear you when you pray. And you know I always answer. In my own time. In my own way. Sometimes in the most unlikely and surprising ways…

Sometimes even with a pug.

Download your FREE ebook, A Prayer for Every Need, by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale

I have played strong, determined women in my television roles—a New York City prosecutor, a San Francisco homicide detective—women who pursue every last lead and keep on doing the next right thing until they solve the crime, women who are certain of the path they’re meant to be on. Offscreen, too, I’m pretty keyed in to what’s supposed to be going on in my life, but I have to admit, sometimes my impatience gets the best of me.

I’m the most impatient person on the planet. I’m always saying, “Hey, God, I’ve got this great idea! Check it out!” When I want something to happen, I want it to happen now, in my time.

Like when my husband, Jason Sehorn, and I started going out. Back then I was on Law & Order. He was a professional football player, a cornerback for the New York Giants. One of his teammates introduced us. Right away I knew Jason was special. He reminded me of the first crush I ever had, Christopher Reeve’s Superman (when I saw that movie as a little girl, I realized, Ooh, I don’t need to push boys away. They’re cute!).

Not only was Jason tall, dark and handsome, he was also smart, strong, kind, honorable and a real gentleman. I mean, the guy was Superman! And I’m sure he could run faster than a speeding bullet if he tried!

From our first date, we clicked. Everything was going great. Until the day we had our first big fight. I went home and sat on my bed, crying. “Lord, I thought I would have met the right guy by now! Please tell me you’ve got someone in mind, because I’m tired of waiting,” I prayed. “I want to be married and have kids. I need to know the right man is near.”

At that moment, the phone rang. It was Jason. “Hey, I just wanted you to know I’m here.”

“What?” I asked. I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“I’m here. Downstairs. I need to talk to you. Can I come up?”

I agreed. When I opened the door, there was Jason with a big bouquet of roses, so huge I couldn’t see his face. “I want to tell you I’m sorry,” he said. He’d had an event that night and at the end of the dinner, he’d gone around to every table and collected every single rose from every single centerpiece.

Our relationship deepened after that. The more I got to know Jason, the more I loved him. Even so, I was totally surprised to see him walk onstage when I was on The Tonight Show in March 2000. Right there in front of Jay Leno and the entire audience, he got down on one knee and asked, “Will you marry me?”

Of course I said yes!

It wasn’t till a couple days later, in my dressing room at Law & Order that I realized I never asked God what he thought. I’d been too busy telling him what I wanted. “Lord,” I said now, “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about this earlier. Is Jason the one you really want me to be with?”

No answer.

I tried again. “God, I don’t want to make a mistake here. I have to know from you. Is Jason the person I should spend the rest of my life with?”

Still nothing. There was a paper clip on the table in front of me. I picked it up and fiddled with it. I felt my impatience resurfacing. Why wasn’t God answering? I just wanted a sign that I was doing the right thing. I looked across the room and saw a cup on my desk, a pencil holder. All at once I had this wild impulse. “God, I’m going to close my eyes and throw this paper clip,” I said. “If it goes into that cup, then that means you’re okay with me getting married to Jason.”

All right, I know how strange that sounds. But I had to do something. Besides, you’ve got to keep in mind that I can’t even throw a crumpled paper into a wastebasket from two feet away—Jason’s the one with athletic talent, not me. But that day, I closed my eyes and tossed the paper clip across the room. As soon as I let go of it, I opened my eyes.

It went right into the cup! I don’t know what I would have done if it hadn’t, but God didn’t put me to that test. He’s always been a lot more patient with me than I am with him.

These days I’m learning the art of patience, mostly from Jason. I see how good he is with our girls, Finley Faith and Avery Grace, ages four and two. He spends hours with them in the backyard looking for bugs and snails and frogs (I think, Gross, those were a plague for a reason!).

My favorite time is right when the girls get up from their naps. They have their little sleepy faces, and they crawl into my lap and snuggle. They’re so still I can feel their hearts beating. I hold them close and think how grateful I am that I waited to meet the right man and have our wonderful family. Not in my time but in God’s.

And never do I feel more like I’m living in his time than when my little ones are in my arms. It’s a reminder that all good things come to those who wait. Even to an impatient person like me.

The Story Behind the Story

I went to L.A. to interview Angie Harmon and bring her story to the page. We’re both working moms with two young daughters so I know how hard it can be to balance a career and kids. In fact, the interview had to be delayed because Angie had pinkeye—we’d been through that at our house too. Chatting with her was like talking to an old friend. We’re both Southern (Angie’s from Texas; I’m from Alabama) and have a lot in common, especially our belief in the power of prayer.

I asked Angie what she wanted her girls to learn from her. She didn’t hesitate. “That there’s always room to improve. We can always do something that makes us a better person.” I love that! Clearly Angie is a beautiful woman, but from working on this story I found out how beautiful she is on the inside too.—G.R.

Download your FREE ebook, A Prayer for Every Need, by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale