Once we established where we would meet up, I took off and found him waiting next to his sporty, red, convertible  MG. We drove around trying to find a place to eat besides the 24 hour Denny’s since it was so late, we opted for desert at a favorite coffee house. I was pretty stiff and not talkative at all. He could sense something was wrong, poor guy! I started wishing I had not been so ice cold when he suggested we go back to my apartment because he also had a tradition. He told me that he, too, got alone with God to be with Him to see the new year in! Well, I had a nudge that said, “Go for it!”  So, we arrived at my place, went over to the love seat, (wink), and on our knees went to our Creator in prayer. We spent some time just worshiping God when Jerry gently put his arm around my shoulder and said these words that started us on a more defined path. “Lord, I thank you for showing me that I need Jana in my life. Lord help us to serve you together wherever you lead us.”

That was it! That was the point in time my mama told me about. “When he commits, it will be because he has decided that this is what he wants and it will be quick from there, you just watch.”  He later told me that he had intended to stay “Single for God” and go to Africa unattached. After that night, everything changed. I was his gal. And everyone knew it. Even the way he walked with me was different. He wanted everyone to know, we were a pair. Grant it, there were some presuming girls who weren’t too happy about that and one even tried to sabotage it! But nothing was going to deter us from the path we were on!

That February Jerry proposed to me at a nice, romantic, candle-lit dinner at an Italian restaurant called Birraporetti’s. Inside the desert menu was a little card that opened up with cut out letters from newspaper magazines that read, “Jana G. will you marry me?” Then a beautiful diamond ring was presented to me in the box with longing eyes and a big smile from the most handsome man I knew! It’s no guess what my answer was! Yes! We enjoyed a nice desert and then I was greeted at the car on the way out with 2 dozen red roses to show this was no joke! It was more than this young woman had ever dreamed of in a proposal! Now it was official. I was his!