At times, we have to just wait for the day when we’ll see the fruit

Sometimes your heart just knows things. Have you ever known from the beginning that you were going to love someone? Have you ever believed — without evidence — that a relationship would be forever?

I’m fascinated by stories of love at first sight, partly because I’ve experienced it myself and partly because such stories validate my need to believe that love can conquer unexpected obstacles.

Sunday evening, a Reddit user going by the name rhysoneill posted this photo and his story.

“The first time I visited my girlfiend (now wife) in college I bought a peach tree from a local nursery and told her, ‘Someday we will eat peaches from it years from now, because we will still be together,’” he wrote. “Well, it worked better than I planned. Here is our son eating a peach from that very tree.”

Six years ago, I wrote about one of my favorite examples of love at first sight. The story is told in detail on an episode of This American Life. At a convention center, there were two conventions going on. John Perry Barlow was a computer nerd at a convention for NeXT software developers. Cynthia Horner was a sophisticated psychiatrist at a medical convention.

Barlow tells the story of seeing Horner for the first time — and knowing that he was seeing someone he somehow already knew. To hear their story, go to this link and scroll down to Act Three — “When Worlds Collide”— to listen.

I’ve related before how I once saw a photo of a woman and experienced the oddest sensation of knowing her deeply, even though I knew absolutely nothing about her. It wasn’t just about her looks or anything like that. It was some odd intuition — some gut feeling — and I remember saying out loud, “I’m going to marry that woman.”

It wasn’t a prediction. It wasn’t a wish. Something in my mind was simply stating what calmly seemed like something I already knew.

Have I married her? No, but I did fall in love with her. How did something in my gut know I would care about her — and want her in this way — with absolutely no evidence? I have no idea. I just know it was very real.

There are times our gut feelings are wrong. There are times when we’re disappointed. But there are also times when something inside you whispers, “This is right,” and it knows what it’s talking about.

Sometimes we need to trust that voice. Sometimes it’s smarter than our minds are.