New intentions set, she “wrote down everything I wanted in a future husband,” she told The Knot in 2019. But she knew what she really wanted was to meet him in a few years, maybe a decade. “I didn’t want to date,” she said. “I wanted to be single.”
Somewhere fate was listening—and laughing.
Because within a year, she found herself volunteering at a church, her return to her Southern Baptist roots coming at her mom’s urging after what she called a “little issue with some tequila.”
It was at that New York City chapel, on a night dubbed “Porn Sunday,” when “ex-porn stars came in and talked about how their life had been changed by church and god,” Graham told InStyle UK, that she first came face-to-face with Ervin, an evangelical with an MFA in social documentary filmmaking and a charismatic spirit.
“One Sunday my volunteer position was to stand in the elevator welcoming people, passing out candy and pushing the button to the eighth floor,” she wrote in her book, excerpted by Glamour. “When two tall men walked in, I didn’t bat an eye. One nudged the other and said, ‘If you don’t talk to her, I will.’ His friend left the elevator, but he stayed on.”