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:: page 11 :: My delight in surprising Amy Since my primary love language is gift giving, I would often surprise her with flowers "just because" or take her out to a special restaurant. Needless to say, she enjoyed reaping the benefits of dating a gift-giver. In a June 4th, 2003 e-mail from her Marriott River Center office, she wrote: "PEEPS! Oh my gosh! Don't even act like you don't know why I'm emailing you! "I was so floored when I walked out to the lobby to meet Nina and Jessica, two clients. Angela, the concierge, said, 'Amy, these are yours.' I looked at what she what she was pointing to and it was YOUR flowers! "I thought, 'I can't believe it!!! He got me flowers! And the colors! Oh, I love the colors! How did he know I love those colors together? I love every single flower in that vase! They look GREAT together!' I love the orange/yellow carnations with the deep orange Gerber daisies and the tiger lilies. They're so beautiful Adam! "Angela said, 'How is it that you ALWAYS get flowers? Does your boyfriend have a brother?' I said, 'They're both taken.' And, your note is my favorite! I love what you said about my desire to follow my heart and desire to share Christ with others. Thank you for your continual encouragement and support. "I can't wait to see you tonight and am honored to be dating you peeps :) ~ Your sweet girl Amy"
Our trip to Montgomery In mid-August of that year, Dr. James Dobson, Alan Keyes and Jerry Falwell issued a national call to Christians to come to Montgomery, Alabama to stand with Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore who was about to be fired for displaying the Ten Commandments monument in the state courthouse. Dr. Dobson called the decision "an insult to all people of faith, who are being told that the public acknowledgement of God is unconstitutional." WorldNetDaily.com reported that Judge "Moore refused to remove the Ten Commandments monument, declaring, 'The point is, it's not about violation of order, it's about violation of my oath of office. And my oath of office to the Constitution requires an acknowledgment of God,' he said. 'It's that simple.'" I love what Flip Benham, head of Operation Save America told WorldNetDaily.com: "'He is turning America right side up again in Jesus' Name,' Benham's group said in a statement. 'We will stand with him! [Moore] 'has done more to remind this country of her biblical roots, and the ethical, moral, and legal foundations than any other person in the past 50 years.'" You can see why Amy and I were so inexorably drawn to go to Montgomery and stand with Judge Moore in his hour of need. Little did we know that it would quickly become one of our all-time favorite memories together. We found a single woman, from a local church there, who was willing to host us for the weekend -- one of us would claim a couch, the other a spare bed. She sounded fairly young on the phone, perhaps in her early 20's. In fact, when we got off the plane and called "Sue" on the cell phone indicating that we were ready to be picked up, she referred to her father as "Daddy" - underscoring our impression that she was college age. We were rather startled to see that she was actually in her late 30's. Later, we learned that many women from that Southern region called their father "Daddy." Her oversized brown-rimmed glasses covered nearly half her make-up-free face. She wore a large blue jean jumper dress over a simple white blouse. And when she spoke to us, she rarely gave us any eye contact. As she slowly pulled her car under the portico at 11:30 p.m., we noticed in the streetlight, much to our horror, that every possible surface - including the dashboard -- was covered with old fast food bags, newspapers, and scraps of paper. After we greeted her with a hug, put our luggage in the back, she asked me to drive home. In order for Sue to climb into the back seat, she first had to flatten some old Burger King, Taco Bell and McDonald's bags which she had oddly never taken the time to throw away after eating her fast food meals. Amy just pulled all of the garbage off the passenger seat onto the floor. As I drove her car across a bridge which turned sharply to the right, I noticed fairly quickly that despite my turning the steering wheel in two full 360-degree turns to the right, the front tires were hardly responding whatsoever. It was as though I had turned the steering wheel only ½ inch to the right. "Sue, what's wrong with your steering wheel?" I asked in a half-panic. "Yeah, it does that when I drive too. I've been meaning to have that checked," she offered meekly. "Sue, this isn't like some minor dashboard light coming on," I said incredulously. "This is pretty dramatic. Your car doesn't steer properly. You've got to get this fixed tomorrow!" "OK," she whimpered. Meanwhile, I pulled over to the side of the road, put on my emergency blinkers and drove to her house with great caution . After we pulled into the driveway of her modest red-brick home off a fairly busy road, we walked through the front door, noticing piles of Twinkies, Doritos and packages of chocolate-chip cookies. Not to mention empty packages of ding-dongs and Pop Tarts which were strewn across the glass-top of the dining room table and the old formica green countertops in the kitchen. When it was time to go to bed, Sue, jumped onto one couch, pulling a thin blanket over herself as she lay down fully clothed and still wearing her glasses as she closed her eyes. Amy took the other couch in the living room. And I was told to take the back bedroom. The next morning, Amy and I felt as though we were part of history as we were among the thousands of Americans who listened to stirring speeches from Alan Keyes, Jerry Falwell, Howard Phillips, Rabbi Yehuda Levin and Judge Moore about the importance of taking a stand for God's law over man's law. I taped them and played them in their entirety for my audience the following Monday. Much to our amusement, as Amy and I were watching the Fox News Channel's coverage of Judge Moore's battle over the Ten Commandments monument a week later, there was, lo and behold, Sue in her signature jean jumper and oversized brown-rim glasses, lying across the steps of the judicial rotunda in Montgomery, surrounded by other protestors who had spent the night outside. I love the body of Christ. We are an eclectic bunch indeed. Very different on the outside, but we all share a common allegiance to Jesus as Savior. Amy wrote me an e-mail shortly after that weekend recalling that "we saw her on Fox News sleeping on the court steps in Montgomery one day in the same jumper she picked us up in at the airport! What a RIOT! And then there was Eleanor who fell absolutely in love with us and balled her eyes out as we were boarding the plane. "And then there was that eclectic group we met at the airport as you corralled everyone to eat barbeque together, trying to make some sort of love connection between that Miss USA girl and the guitarist/surfer boy.
"Yeah, that is definitely one of my favorite memories with you. We'll need a darn good story topper for that one. Not sure anything could come close." Index :: Previous |
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