Tag Archives: Dating

The perfect hope for happiness. 

9 Jul

Walking by Faith, Not by Sight

Janet Perez Eckles

His Way

07-01-16 hope

No airplane flight has ever been boring for me. I hear stories and details from fellow passengers that make me think, surprise me at times but more often, they become fodder for my writing.

Here is the latest one: “Oh, I was really hoping this would be the one,” the woman seated beside me in the plane related as she sipped her coffee. “but didn’t happen. He was just another jerk. I married two of them already…don’t need another one.”

With disgust in her voice she detailed how for months and months she did all she could to find her soul mate, her partner for life, the husband to make her happy.

And each time she hoped God would send the right one. She hoped the matching website she signed up would render positive results. And to make it more urgent, she told me that, she hoped, really hoped her time clock would slow down a bit.

She wasn’t alone. King David might have been on the same search. However, His version of Christian Mingle was probably more effective as he had relationships galore. But sadly, he wasn’t the purest of them all. He was flawed, he failed, he lied, he cheated and he even murdered.

Yet…are you ready…God called him “a man after His own heart.”

How could that be! Possibly, one of those nights, like so many nights before, David drank yet another glass of sorrow and regret. As he dropped to his knees, his hope surged. But his hope was different than the woman on the plane. This is what he said:

“Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” (Psalm 42:3-5)

David finally got it right. He found the only hope for his happiness and meaning. What an example of a ghastly life with a glorious ending. That’s because David put his hope in God, the one who forgives, the one who provides and the one who brings our deepest desire to reality.

How about you…may I ask in whom or in what are you placing your hope these days?

Janet

Source: The perfect hope for happiness. | Janet Perez Eckles

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How We Met~Part 3

19 Oct

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

JUDY

 

 

As it turned out, Fred was attending the same church where I was a member. So we kept seeing each other there, and were in the same youth group.

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It didn’t take long for me to realize the he was probably the most shy guy I had ever met. He also had never been on a date – so I was his first! And as for the first date – the youth group was having a hay ride up to the mountains – and I had to ask HIM if he would like to go with me! I told you he was shy!! He also didn’t have a driver’s license, so anywhere we went, I was the driver.

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Chapel service at the UNM BSU Center

 

I remember that the BSU had a Halloween haunted house, and I went there with Fred. It was a neat thing. In a darkened room, they had you put your hand in a bowl of peeled grapes as eyeballs, spaghetti noodles as brains…you get the picture. One of the adult sponsors of the BSU was good at story-telling, and she had on a black outfit with glow-in-the-dark gloves, and told some sort of tale. Everyone had on some kind of costume. There was bobbing for apples and other such games. It was really a lot of fun. You remember – the way we used to do it.

 

 

The group had retreats in the mountains outside Albuquerque (Sandia Mountains); they had retreats at Glorieta Baptist Conference Center near Santa Fe; all those things Fred and I went to together, becoming more familiar with each other.

 

 

Fred started coming to our BHiU meetings – by walking from UNM to the church where my group met – about a three mile hike – and all before he had to go to his own classes! He said he doesn’t remember ever riding the bus there – perhaps the bus schedule at that hour of the morning didn’t fit our meeting time. In any case – he walked there.

 

Fred started spending time at my house, getting to know my parents.

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My brother, Bill, had already gone into the Navy and wasn’t there to meet him. It wasn’t until we were engaged to be married that Bill and Fred met. We had been dating for about 18 months before Fred popped the question. I said “yes – but not yet.” We were engaged for another 18 months before we married.

Fred, my parents, and I drove from Albuquerque to Los Angeles (Inglewood), California, to spend Christmas with Bill and DiVoran in 1960. They had a little house and we were really crammed into that space.

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Dad told me later that Bill had pronounced Fred to be “a man’s man” as we left. Bill had always been my protector – when Daddy was out on the road as much as he was, Bill was the one to meet my dates. And intimidate them, if possible! He was bigger than most of them. But he and Fred got along, right from the start.

The last year of Fred’s UNM experience, he roomed at our house. He paid my parents what he would have paid the university for room and board. It made us very comfortable with each other – we saw each other last thing at night and first thing in the morning. So we both went into our marriage with our eyes wide open!

 We married on June 20, 1961. It’s been a great 53+ years of marriage. We are grateful to God for all these years together.

 

 

~~~~~~The End~~~~~~

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My Beloved–Part 1

2 Jan

A Slice of Life

     Bill Lites

Bill

By the time I got to my senior year in high school, my interest in education was almost nonexistent.  My parents had planned a formal education for me and kept pushing me to prepare for college.  I only wanted to graduate from high school so I could get a job and get out of the house.  As a result, I was not a very good student, so I only took the required classes, and filled the rest of the day with meaningless electives.  One of those electives was typing.

 

typewriter typing class

As it turned out, that class ended up being a really good choice for two reasons.  One, I was the only boy in the class, which was great, because I loved being surrounded by girls.  And two, I didn’t know it at the time, but God had planned for me to meet DiVoran in that class.

 

young beloved

I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the class requirements, because I was more interested in impressing the girls by being the class cut-up.  At first, DiVoran and I knew no more about each other than that she used the typewriter I did in the next class.  Oftentimes I would be slow collecting my typing stuff, she would be early for her class, and we would talk briefly.

My best friend at the time was Bud.  He also had classes with DiVoran, and had asked her out a couple of times.  DiVoran happened to be friends with a girl named Rita, who I had also noticed.  When I found out from Bud that DiVoran knew Rita, I saw my chance for a clandestine inquiry.  Being a little shy about the whole thing, one day after class, I asked DiVoran if I could carry her books to her locker, as I had a question to ask her.

lockers

Months later, she told me she had expected me to ask her out, but was surprised, when it was Rita I wanted to know about.  “Yes, she probably would,” DiVoran said, “but you better ask her yourself.”   I did, and after my first date with Rita, she and I, and Bud and DiVoran started double dating.

double dates

Somehow, it evolved that DiVoran and I called each other to talk about our relationships with Bud and Rita.

 

 

—To Be Continued—

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