~Our Love Story...Part 2~

~All Because 2 people were falling in Love!~

Growing up I was close to my Daddy, but there were things in which we thought differently.  I now realize that most of those things were a combo of personality and the fact that he thinks like...A MAN! =) So, in saying the above,  I had always teased my Daddy that I wouldn't marry a man like him.  Phillip and I hadn't been dating too long before I told my Daddy that PHILLIP was exactly like him!  You should have heard my daddy LAUGH.  HE LOVED IT! =)

Before Phillip and I went anywhere together we tried to always have a plan of where we were going to go and what we were going to do.  When we were together we would spend a lot of time talking about things we believed in and felt strongly about to find out if we were compatible.  We discussed all kinds of things, like Biblical standards, raising children, careful living, etc.  We spent time praying together on our dates too.

February 1993 found Phillip and I on the big bus...with the rest of the GBS choir.  We had a really nice tour!  12 days of services filled with God's presence, beautiful songs, nice choir mates, GREAT choir director and wife (Bro. Garen and Sis. Sheila Wolf) and he and I had a wonderful time being together!! 

That was the only year that Phillip and I were in choir together.  (He had been in the choir the year before I came to GBS, and I was in choir for 2 more years without him!)

~Me (with my friend who cut herself out of this picture and sent it to me) in my BEAUTIFUL off-white coat that my Phillip got me for my birthday that year! I LOVED THAT COAT!!!~

I was the baker at GBS that year and so one evening I was baking late.  Phillip dropped by to say hello (there were plenty of people around).   I had just received a letter from my Mother and wanted to read it to him.   My parents were going to come out for IHC and I received this letter a few weeks before that. 

Phillip hadn't met my Moma yet and had NO CLUE how ornery she is!!  So when I got to a certain funny part of her letter I went into the back storage room to get some more flour...but mainly so that Phillip wouldn't see my SMILING face.   I knew he would DIE when he heard this part!  So, from the back room I read him to him,

"I have written our good friend Paul Gray a letter and asked him if my daughter Heather and her special friend Phillip could sing at IHC!" 

I wish you could have heard Phillip and seen his face!  He said, "That's crazy!!  Just because some Mother wants to hear her daughter sing, she shouldn't drag her boyfriend into it!"  By that time I was howling laughing and came out of the back room and told him that MOMA made it all up...and WAS JUST being SILLY!! =) (God has given Phillip a nice voice, but he is very backward when it comes to singing up front.  He'd far rather SPEAK than sing!)

Since my parents lived in S. Dakota (21 hours away) they didn't get to meet Phillip until we had known each other for 7 months.  They came out for IHC and it was SO FUN having them around and getting to introduce them to my special friend.  At IHC they got to hear Phillip and I sing in the GBS choir.  After IHC they stayed over the weekend before going back to South Dakota.  They seemed pleased with what they saw in my Phillip. 

~This is a GBS picnic picture of Phillip and I, but I'm not sure what year!  Maybe Fall '93 or Fall '94?~

I was a work student at GBS and PRAYED IN every penny to pay my college school bill.  My parents helped me some on my school bill, but I basically paid the whole thing by HARD WORK AND PRAYER..and NO LOANS!!  I'll never forget how one day I was a little discouraged about my school bill and PRAYED SPECIFICALLY that Jesus would send money in for my bill THAT VERY DAY!  I went to my mailbox with HIGH expectations!  Sure enough...in my mail was a check....from GBS...for a whopping 16 cents...yep, you read that right...SIXTEEN CENTS!!!  =)   That evening I came to supper a tad sad for I had so believed that Jesus was going to help me be able to put some money on my school bill that day!  To my surprise Phillip told me that he had received a check for $50.00 from someone he didn't even know...so he had gone and PUT IT ON MY SCHOOL BILL!  What a sweetheart!!!  It was only WEEKS later that Dad D. happened to be talking to another staff member and found out that someone had sent each staff member a check for $50.00!  Dad was surprised that he didn't get one...and THEN he remembered Phillip telling him the story.  Dad and Phillip share the same name and same middle initial, so POOR DAD's bonus check WENT ON MY SCHOOL BILL, because when Phillip found it in his mailbox he thought it was for HIM!  =) =)  (Sorry, Dad, I guess I still owe you $50.00. =)

That summer Phillip traveled with the quartet and I was in S. Dakota with my parents.  We only got to see each other twice that summer.  My dear parents drove the many long hours to our wonderful camp in Pell City, Alabama and Phillip and I got to spend some time together there.  And then we saw each other again at a camp in Nebraska.  Remember this was the "olden days" and there weren't things like cell phones, texting and emailing around.  So, he sent me his schedule and I wrote SNAIL MAIL letters to him (sprayed with my perfume =).  I would write them a couple weeks ahead of time and send them to the places where he would be singing. =)  He told me that he always loved getting my letters each place he would go.  (And of course the Quartet and Duane would tease the life out of him!) 

Phillip called me as often as he could that summer too!

The whole time we were dating I kept praying and telling God, that if Phillip WAS NOT the man He had for me, to break us up...before I fell ANYMORE IN LOVE with him!  =)  Phillip had felt clear to court me, but was waiting on God's "go-ahead" to ask me to marry him!  He really loved me and wanted to marry me, but He really wanted to make sure that I was the ONE that Jesus had for his life! 

Around Bible schools there is always PEER PRESSURE to get engaged and married, maybe even before it's God's time.  Phillip is a very cautious and careful man.   It also bugged Phillip how couples would tell everyone that they were getting married even before they were engaged.  Today Phillip realizes and says that in trying to avoid what other couples did, he didn't communicate his intentions to me enough.  

Phillip and I had now been dating for 18 months.  I'll never forget when a visiting minister to GBS campus...someone I respected and had known all of my life and a long-time family friend...asked me how long Phillip and I had been dating.  I told him that we had been dating for 18 months.  He (out of concern for me, I'm sure) told me that he knew of one guy that dated a girl for 10 years, then broke up with her!!  He then began to SCARE ME HALF TO DEATH and told me that maybe I didn't really know Phillip and maybe THAT is what he was going to do to me!  HELP!  

So, I had a friend call Phillip's house and ask for Mom D. then I got on the phone and asked her NOT to tell Phillip that I had called.  I told her what the elder had said about Phillip and simply asked her if she thought that her Phillip would do that to me.  (Hind sight is 20/20 and I wish I would have called and talked to my own wise Mother...but it never. even. crossed. my. mind.)
Mom D. tried her best to assure me that she thought everything would be fine. 

The next day I talked to Phillip and told him that maybe we should just break up!  He wanted to know what had brought this on, so I reluctantly shared with him what my elder friend had told me.  I told him that if he had plans to do that to me, that we should just quit dating! 
(I'm sure my older friend meant WELL though he caused me/us A LOT of stress!  Later I look back and wonder if it wasn't just a trick of the enemy to get us to break up...knowing that God had special plans for our lives as a couple?!)  

 
Little did I know that at that moment my ARTIST Phillip was already working on my portrait he was drawing of me for my engagement gift!

Phillip's response to me....is coming in Part 3...tomorrow!