One wrong number landed this caller to Mr. Right.
Over a decade ago, Brenda Rivera Stearns was just trying to send a friend a text when she accidentally typed in the number of her now-husband Isaiah Stearns.
“I sent a Bible scripture message to all of my contacts, which at the time I didn’t have many. Maybe only like ten people,” Brenda told Kennedy News. “A few minutes later, the phone number which I thought belonged to a friend replied saying, ‘Amen to that, who is this?’”
The 35-year-old, who was trying to share the excerpt with her pal in 2009, now believes it was “an act of fate” – Isaiah would have never received the message if she had sent it any sooner.
Isaiah, 40, had just purchased a new phone 30 minutes before receiving the text made in heaven, but the pair were separated by 800 miles at the time.
Initially, Brenda, who works as an online content creator, assumed Isaiah’s number belonged to an old friend until he corrected her.
The pair began texting — just as friends, at first — then it evolved into phone calls. Upon hearing his voice, Brenda said she knew he was “authentic” – and it was love at first dial.
“It started as a friendship. But then I started to think, ‘Maybe I like him?’” she recalled. “I was so excited about liking him, I did romanticize it, and fantasized a lot but I was hesitant about how I was feeling.”
“I think I was scared to open up my heart,” she added. “I thought, ‘What if he’s lying, what if he’s someone else?’”
While Brenda was hesitant to meet Isaiah at first, her mom, Rossy, offered to meet her daughter’s courter instead, as both Isaiah and Rossy lived in Ohio. Her mom and sister met Isaiah for dinner one night, reporting back to Brenda following the meet-up.
“You’re going to marry this guy,” Rossy said.
“It took me by surprise, this was so out of character for my mom to say something like this. I knew he must really be something special,” Brenda said. “Underneath, I think I’d already known and agreed with her before she said it. But after she said it, I let my guard down.”
Despite dismissing her mother at first, the pair tied the knot less than a year later in June 2010; Isaiah had put a ring on it mere months after meeting in person.
“The whole time, it was like we were meant to be together and by February, he proposed. We got married in June,” she said, adding that there’s no “right or wrong way to meet somebody.”
“It feels like fate,” she gushed. “God’s finger was orchestrating every step of our relationship, for sure.”
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This year, the pair, who share six children, will have been married for 13 years.
“We balance each other out so well and I’m just so proud of the life we’re leading together and everything we’ve created — our six children,” she said. “I love our story so much.”
On TikTok, the hopeless romantics’ love story amassed a whopping 2 million views, and they hope it can encourage users to “not give up on love.”
“13 years ago I sent that text by accident never expecting him to keep my number and call me back! I’m so glad he did,” she captioned the clip, which featured images of the pair spanning from their meet-cute to their latest family portrait.
Users in the comments cheered the happy couple, praising their unbelievable story while some shared their own.
“I think you sent that text to the *right* number. Beautiful story!” one user applauded.
“My responses to unknown #’s are not typically marriage material,” quipped another.
“Guess I should be responding to wrong texts,” joked someone else.
One person shared a similar unlikely story: “In 1992 a complete stranger helped me with my dead battery and we have been married 29 years!”
It’s no wonder why social media can’t get enough of Brenda and Isiah’s modern day romance. “When other people hear about it, they’re always so surprised. They think we should be in a Hallmark movie,” Brenda said. “I’ve always felt our story was special. It’s so nice to see it inspiring other people to really find love.”