Bea's Story

Bea and Ken

Church was the center of life in the mid-20^th century in Southern Oklahoma, where Bea grew up.  Her parents served their impoverished farming community, assisting others whenever and however they could.  It was the way of life for Bea and her three sisters, and although they may have been deprived of modern luxuries, their life was rich in tradition, faith, and community.  

Sometimes during the dinner prayer, Bea would peek at her daddy with his eyes squeezed shut and lips moving like he was really talking to someone – and that always made her wonder.  It wasn’t long before she learned who he was talking to – when she herself gave her heart to the Lord. Bea’s days were filled with joy, nourished by the love of her family, her church, and her community.  When Bea was about 10 years old, she hadn’t thought much about getting married until her Sunday school teacher told the girls, “Pray for your Godly mate and wait until God brings him into your life.  Trust Him to do that for you.  Don’t go looking for him.  Trust God that He’ll bring that man into your life when it is the right time.”  Bea believed her, and it totally changed her life.  She started praying that, even at that young age.

Bea grew up in a strong, loving family with God in the center.  Though they didn’t have many material things, she was blessed with an abundantly happy life.  Bea says of her father that he was a man among men who showed unconditional love like no one she has ever met.  He was a farmer, and Bea’s mother, like other women at the time, was a homemaker.  There weren’t many places for a woman to work outside of the home.  Then when Bea was a teenager, the Haggar Slack Company opened a factory in a little town close to where they lived, and many women started working there.  Bea’s mother did as well, and it changed the whole trajectory of their family.  She got up early and was gone all day at the factory.  Bea’s older sister had already gotten married and moved out of the house, so Bea and her two younger sisters had to take on a lot of the housework that their mother had once done.  They had more chores, but they also had more income.  This was a blessing because farm life meant relying each season on whether the crops came in.  Bea remembers her father just rolling with it, trusting fully that God would supply all their needs.

Bea met Ken when she was 15 and he was 17, but they didn’t go to the same school.  They lived seven miles apart, on opposite sides of the county line that divided their small Southern Oklahoma school districts.  Students at Bea’s school were exempt from semester tests if they had good grades and good attendance.  Bea never had to take a semester test.  One day at the end of the semester, a friend from the other school invited Bea to go to school with her.  Some of her friends didn’t understand why she would want to go to school when she didn’t have to, but Bea loved school and loved people, and so that sounded like a fun adventure to her.

That morning on the school bus, Bea’s friend kept announcing who would be getting on next.   When the bus stopped in front of one house, Bea’s friend said, “This will be Kenny.  He’s a senior.  He’ll get on the bus singing.”  And he did.  He laughingly said to Bea, “You’re in my seat!”  They ended up talking together the entire ride.  The following night was Friday, and the girls had previously planned on going skating.  Ken and his friends showed up at the rink also.  The very next night Ken and Bea double-dated with another couple to a Billy Graham film at a church youth rally.  Afterwards they went to town for a Coke.  True to his playful nature, he grinned and asked her, “Will you marry me?”  They both laughed at the question, but they also knew he wasn’t entirely joking.  They connected instantly on that first date and knew they were meant to be together.  They never dated anyone else.

Ken also grew up in a loving family that faithfully attended church together.  He started attending Bea’s church with her and began to grow in his understanding of the Bible.  Every Friday and Saturday night Ken would go to Bea’s house, and they’d go out somewhere on a date.  Then when he went away to Cameron University the following year, they didn’t see much of each other.  Although he was only in Lawton, OK, that was still an hour away, and back then you didn’t just hop in your car and go wherever you wanted because of the cost.  It was the same with long-distance phone calls.  They kept in touch by writing letters instead.  Their early days together were filled with beautiful love letters that captured the deepening bond between them.  Ken transferred to the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, and when Bea graduated from high school, she got a scholarship to Cameron.  She admits it was miserable that they couldn’t be together, so she gave up the scholarship.  They married in May and lived with Ken’s parents until moving into student housing on campus at UCO in August. 

Bea remembers this as one of the sweetest times in their lives.  They both finished college.  They had little in terms of money, but to Bea, those times were rich in love and memories – she wouldn’t trade that season of her life for anything.  Over the years, many people have told her that the first few years of marriage can be rough because that’s when you’re really getting to know your spouse.  It wasn’t that way for Bea.  She and Ken knew each other well from all their letter-writing to one another.  They spent time getting to know each other.  Bea regards the letters as precious treasures because she was able to pick them up to read again and again.

Before Ken and Bea were married, they definitely faced temptations to be physically intimate, but they were committed to honoring their values.  Bea didn’t feel comfortable talking about these things with her mother, but her older sister was a great source of guidance whenever she had questions or needed advice.  Bea told Ken, “The decisions we make now determine our whole life.  What do we want our future to look like?”  Ken was so willing to hear that, and he agreed with it.  When one of them struggled in this area, the other stepped in with faith and support to help them both stay strong. 

It bears repeating that Bea says her father was such a good man who walked out the Word of God so beautifully.  She also says that she adored Ken’s father just as much.  He was a wonderful man who loved Bea dearly.  Ken’s parents took her in from the moment they met.  They were both so good to her.  There was a moment of darkness in her life when her father-in-law transitioned to Heaven at only 56 years old.  The family quickly turned their eyes toward Jesus and the hope of a sweet reunion with him one day.  Bea said she learned to turn the dark to light so quickly.  That’s how she’s lived her life.

Ken and Bea went on to build a successful life and family together and are thankful to all the Godly people they’ve crossed paths with throughout the years.   As Bea reflects over her life, she says, “I have over 125 friends and relatives who have been married for over 50 years; they are approaching 60 years of marriage now, and there are six who have been married over 70 years.  This represents a lot of solidness.  They are all Christians.”  Ken and Bea’s legacy lives on in their two daughters, whom they’ve taught to serve God and serve others, and they in turn are teaching their children to do the same.

Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalms 37:4)

Ken and Bea tell their love story here in a video they made to celebrate 50 years from the day they first met. 

Bea is currently on the Board of Directors of Body & Soul Fitness.

Helen's Story

Helen and Sam

To a distant observer, Helen’s household might have seemed like any typical family of five, with her parents and two brothers going about their daily lives.  But inside, the house was quiet.  It was the kind of quiet that felt heavy, not peaceful.  Love was not a word people used there.  There wasn’t any touching.  Helen has no recollection of her parents sleeping in the same room.  They seemed to live parallel lives under the same roof, never colliding with one another.  Helen wondered quietly and often what love was supposed to look like. 

Her mother met a man who provided the emotional stability she associated with love, prompting her to leave Helen's father. They divorced shortly after, and Helen’s mother married that man.  This was when Helen was in middle school.  Growing up without affection, Helen became desperate for it and started dating during her sophomore year of high school.  The attention and affection that she received as a teenager in her dating relationships could have been assuaged a little bit if she had experienced some physical affection from the people in her life who should have been giving it to her.

Helen dated the same boy through her freshman year of college.  Although physically tempted, she held back, hearing her mother’s voice in the back of her head telling her that sex was like a bag of chips: “You tell yourself one chip is enough, but you always end up wanting more.”  If she was willing to have sex with one boy, she was likely to have sex with others too.  Fear of getting pregnant also caused Helen to wait, until the temptation finally became too strong after a few years, and she gave in. 

They eventually broke up when he moved away to college.  In a short time, he married another woman, got divorced from her, and then started interacting again with Helen during her junior year in college.  Helen married him within a year after his divorce.  She said that if she would have had someone speaking wisdom into her life, she would have avoided the marriage.  Her parents offered no real support.  Despite concerns about his character, rather than guiding her away from a possible mistake, they told her what she wanted to hear and urged her to marry him.  They were married for a year, but during that time, he was unfaithful, and she came to realize there were other disturbing sides to him she hadn’t seen before.

Helen said she got married to him out of guilt because she was already sleeping with him and wanted to make it right.  She knew she shouldn’t be having sex outside of the confines of marriage.  Because of her upbringing, Helen didn’t know what a real relationship should look like.  She deeply desired to have her own family.  She longed for the whole package but struggled to believe that God could truly give her something so great.  Her brief marriage mirrored the one she witnessed as a child – her husband was nothing more than a roommate. 

At some point the Lord had gotten a hold of her.  She began attending church regularly.  She knew she should stop drinking.  Helen also sought counseling to understand why she was drawn to men like her ex-husband and how to deal with other emotional issues.

She recalls once when she and a date returned to her apartment, and as they became physical, she began to feel unsafe.  She told him that she didn’t know him that well, and fortunately, things between them came to a stop.  When he left, Helen sat down on her couch and told God, “You have to put me in a bubble because I don’t know what to do or how to handle these situations.”  Not one man had pursued her since that prayer.  If a man talked to or engaged with her at all, she was completely obtuse to the whole thing.  She also discovered that men who were father figures to Helen, such as her pastor at the time, were protecting her.  “No, you leave her alone,” they would say to potential suitors.

In her early thirties, Helen felt more emotionally ready to date again.  She began praying about being married.  She felt that the Lord showed her a lot of things about healthy marriages, even though there was no man in her social purview who was single, her age, and whom she was interested in.  As Helen drew closer to God, she knew that He was revealing to her that she would be married again and would have children.  She had visions of them, where she would not see their faces but would sense their presence and know they were her family.  As an act of faith, Helen started preparing her house for a family and even felt led by God to start writing her future husband letters when she was dealing with the emotions of wanting him to be there already.  She trusted that God would bring her the right man at the perfect time. 

 She had been using the eHarmony dating app and was direct in her response to a man who asked her out for a second date.  “To be honest,” she told him, “We’ve been sitting here drinking a cup of coffee for two hours, and you’ve been complaining about your family the whole time.  I don’t want to be a member of that family.  I would rather not be the one that you complain about in five years.  Think about what I’m saying and think about what you’re doing.”  She decided not to use the dating app any longer and stopped paying for the service.  She found she was not interested in men like she had been before.  She only wanted who God wanted for her.

There was a man in Georgia named Sam who saw a free promotion one weekend for the eHarmony dating app and thought he’d give it a try.  He wondered who some of his potential matches were.  During that time, Helen had been traveling back and forth from her home in Indiana to Tennessee to help one of her brothers with a family matter but found herself free that same weekend when eHarmony ran the special offer.  She wondered who some of her potential matches were. 

Sam and Helen met for free on eHarmony and began a long-distance relationship.  It was during this time that Helen’s ex-husband tracked her down and asked her to forgive him for all the hurt that he caused and for all that he lied about in the past.  He asked if they could be friends.  She told him she knew she would remarry and said to him, “I am pretty sure that my husband will not want you to be in my life.  So, no, you and I cannot be friends.  We cannot be in contact.  Not even from afar.”

Meanwhile, while Sam and Helen were getting to know one another, they emailed for the first month or so, and then he asked if he could call her on the phone.  She remembered that she liked his voice when she heard him for the first time and felt like the Lord was telling her that he was the one.  She thought she was just making it up in her head because how could he be the one if they only just recently met on the Internet and just started talking on the phone?  Sam told her he wanted to meet her, but she was extremely leery of the whole situation.  She knew it was time, but she had been hurt so much from past relationships and was scared.  They continued talking and using FaceTime to communicate for a few more months.  They talked every day.   She finally went ahead and agreed to meet Sam. 

He went to college later in life and would soon be graduating.  She was a teacher and was already starting summer break.  He took the trip to Indiana in May to meet her and spent a week there so that they could get to know one another.  Helen was scared and uncomfortable.  She told him she was not going to kiss him and was not going to be affectionate with him; she was not interested in any of that.  She told him, “If you’re interested in me, then you’re just going to have to deal with it because I don’t know for sure.”  He went back to Georgia not knowing at all if she was even interested in him.

Sam had been involved in past romantic relationships, but they never led up to intercourse.  He endeavored to remain pure for his future bride.  He was raised in a Christian home but did not see a lot of demonstration of purity growing up.  His parents had also divorced when he was a teenager, and he also did not have any role models that demonstrated a loving marriage relationship. 

As their relationship progressed, Helen and Sam agreed not to do anything physical beyond kissing each other.  Period.  There was a very stark line.  Helen did not want this relationship to be like all of her others.  They both didn’t want any indiscretion before the Lord.  As a child, Helen read through the Bible and was well aware that sex was reserved for marriage, but there were numerous times growing up that she would stumble in this area.  She remembers the Holy Spirit telling her that what she was doing was wrong and giving her the chance to put an end to things, but eventually she just ignored the promptings.   The Lord always gives us a way out, but we have to decide on our own to listen to that voice inside of us.  Helen had finally reached a place in her life where she wanted to do things right.  She wanted to do things God’s way.

Helen admits that both she and Sam knew on their first phone call that the Lord was putting both of them together, but they were both nervous about how the relationship would progress, having seen their parents go through unstable marriages.  They wanted to be assured that they were both hearing from God and wanted to feel comfortable about where the relationship was heading.  

In June, Helen went to Georgia to visit him for a week.  She was staying at his aunt’s house, and there was a big birthday party for Sam that month.  He was a youth pastor at his church, and so the head pastors were like parents to him.  They demonstrated to him what a healthy marriage looks like.  Helen remembers the pastor’s wife cross-examining her about her character, and she wondered why this stranger was asking all sorts of probing questions.  Helen didn’t know it at the time, but the pastor’s wife had been praying for more than ten years for the Lord to bring Sam a wife, so she was examining Helen since she was the girl who traveled all the way from Indiana to visit him. 

It was during that trip in June that Helen and Sam discussed marriage.  They had talked on the phone for a total of six months.  There were a couple more back-and-forth trips, and then at the end of July, before she had to start teaching again, she made another trip to Georgia, and that’s when Sam presented her with a ring and proposed.  She continued teaching in Indiana and then resigned from her position on Thanksgiving and moved to Georgia.  They got married the following December.  They were both in their thirties and agreed that a long engagement was a moot thing, especially since they knew they were hearing from the Lord and past hurts had been healed. 

The night before their wedding, Helen gave Sam the stack of letters that she had written him months before ever meeting him, letters she had written in faith that God would fulfill His promise to her.  Helen and Sam have four children, two boys and two girls, ranging in age from five to ten.  As a child, Helen doesn’t recall even her grandparents hugging or kissing or even touching each other.  In her family, you only got a hug if something bad happened.  She has memories of wanting to be close to her mother and her mother pushing her away.  Sam’s family was the complete opposite.  He grew up with many healthy hugs.  The Lord knows what He’s doing when He brings a husband and a wife together.  Helen now makes it a point to snuggle often with her children.  To a distant observer, it is evident that this family is wrapped in the arms of a loving Father, and they share that love with one another.

Valerie's Story

Valerie and Rick

Valerie’s rebellion was silent.  She wasn’t trying to be bad, but at 13 she just wanted someone to notice that the hurt reached deep down to her core when her parents told her they were divorcing. The pain she was feeling produced some poor choices throughout her teenage years.

With the oppression that seemed to accompany her everywhere and the sorrow over the death of her grandmother during that time, the aching Valerie was experiencing became physical as well as emotional.  She wasn’t feeling well and went to see a doctor.  Thinking it was stress, she instead found out she was 4 ½ months pregnant. 

She was 19 years old, unwed, not even in a serious relationship, and she was scared.  Either the baby was going to die because the placenta had detached, or she was going to die.  Both of them lived.  Her tiny baby boy was born premature at only 2 ½ pounds.  Valerie gave him up for adoption.  God had a plan for him.  Valerie learned of a family who had been trying to have a baby for several years.   Many couples yearn to take the love they have and give it to another woman’s child.  This was one of those couples.  They named their new son Brandon.

Although Valerie sensed some warning signs when she later met her first husband, she pushed them aside.  They were married for four years and had a son, Nathaniel, together. She found out that her husband was doing drugs behind her back.  He was verbally abusive to her.  She found pot in his pockets while doing his laundry.  Valerie’s brother and her first husband had been friends. They had been go-karting together when a terrible accident happened – her brother’s aorta tore on impact, and he died shortly after.

Valerie became very angry.  She was angry that her brother was gone.  She was angry for the way her husband treated her.  About a year after her brother’s accident, Valerie filed for divorce.   Full of hurt and dealing with much pain, she started drinking.  After several years, she reached a moment of desperation and cried out to God.  She was attending church but wasn’t living the life she was meant to live.  It wasn’t the kind of life she wanted for Nathaniel, and it wasn’t the life she wanted for herself either.  “God,” she finally proclaimed, “I don’t want to be this way anymore.”  That was the moment Valerie rededicated her life.  It was also during that time that she forgave her first husband.  She felt such a relief come over her.  The floodgates opened up, and she could hear the voice of God. 

Valerie was a single mom and made the choice not to drink or smoke cigarettes any longer.  She completely died to self.  She was hungry for so much more.  She wanted to know more of Jesus. Valerie realized that she needed to get wise counseling to work through what she was feeling over the loss of her brother and the loss of her marriage.  She needed to realize herself that she needed help, and that’s where her journey began.  Her counselor told her that she didn’t have to settle anymore, but Valerie also knew she needed time to heal.  Valerie wanted to get her life straight.  She wanted to get married again and didn’t want to bring any baggage into a new marriage.  She wanted a kingdom, Godly marriage. 

From sound, biblical teaching, Valerie learned that her words mattered.  Her words were life and death.  In her prayer time, she called forth a husband who is a man of God, who loves Jesus, and who must also love Nathaniel as a son.  She and Nathaniel would take communion together.  She would pull Nathaniel close and ask him what he was believing for.  “Mom, I’m believing for a daddy, and I’m believing to meet my brother.”  Valerie wanted to show Nathaniel what faith was – believing for her husband before she even met him and believing to meet Brandon.

Brandon’s adoptive mother kept in touch with Valerie by writing letters and sending pictures to update her on Brandon’s life.  This went on for 15 years.  Valerie prayed about meeting Brandon sometime.  She trusted the Lord completely.  She was standing on Romans 4:21 – she was fully persuaded that God would answer her prayer. 

That was one of many prayers that was answered. Valerie and Nathaniel met Brandon when he was 16 years old. God is always working behind the scenes on our behalf.  It’s all in His timing.  Valerie is fully convinced that our words have power when we put our full trust in the Lord.  Brandon is now 34 years old.  They’ve been getting together regularly for holidays all these years.   The cycle had gone full circle with Valerie, releasing Brandon unto the Lord, and then the Lord returning him back to her.  Her healing began when she chose to forgive her first husband, setting loose into God’s hands the pain he had caused her.  In that moment of surrender, the peace of Christ filled Valerie’s heart, and the journey of restoration began. Even when she later learned that her first husband had taken his own life, she held onto the grace that had already begun to heal her, trusting in God’s mercy for both of them.

God was leading Valerie further from her past and closer to His purpose.  She was single, yet her deepest desire was to be married.  She said, “Lord, you’re my first love, and if I never get married again, I will trust You, I will serve You, and I will love You.”  Then she just let it go. 

About a year later, she met Rick at a church singles’ event.  They had been going to the same church for seven years and never met.  When we surrender our desire to Him, He gives to us that very thing we surrendered.  Valerie believes, “You have to be willing to say, ‘Lord, I trust You.  I give this desire to You.  I surrender to You.  I’m going to serve You and love You even if I never see this come to pass.’”

Valerie told the Lord, “You have to bring my future husband to me.”  She saw Rick at a couple of the singles’ events but thought nothing of it.  She was with a group of people returning from Great America, an amusement park just north of Chicago, and he opened the car door for her. She thought, “Wow, this is kind of nice.”  What really attracted Valerie to Rick was the way he was a wealth of knowledge about the Word of God and how he talked about how much he loved the Lord.  It was as if a veil had been lifted off her eyes.  Then the two of them became friends.  It was always in a group setting where they all got to know each other.  Valerie believes that it’s safe at any age to meet people that way because you can be your authentic self; you’re not trying to impress anyone. 

Rick eventually asked Valerie out to dinner.  She was upfront about everything – her previous marriage, her two sons.  She didn’t want anything hidden from him from the start.  Valerie knew on that first date that Rick was who the Lord had chosen for her.  She recalls telling her mother afterward, “He’s the one.” 

There were more dates, and their relationship was getting more serious.  After dating for a month and a half, he proposed.  Valerie’s pastor at the time said that if you’ve been dating for six months and you don’t know this is the one for you, you just need to move on.  That was true for Valerie and Rick.  They each knew early on that they were meant to marry one another.  They got married 6 months later.

Rick told Valerie on their first date that he was not going to kiss her until they were married.  She didn’t catch at first that he spoke of their marriage so early into their relationship.  He knew on that first date, just like she also knew on that first date.  After some time had passed, he told her that he respected her and he did not want to have any temptations.  They had both made mistakes in the past and were determined not to repeat them.  Their focus was to honor God first and foremost, then to honor each other.

After Valerie and Rick were married, they had a daughter who is now 20.  Nathaniel is now 29 and just graduated from Bible college.  Brandon is a very present part of their lives. 

Through the trauma Valerie faced, she has come to know that she is loved by the most high God, who created her in His image and wants nothing but the best for her.  When she realized that kind of love, it became easy for her to respect herself and forgive herself.  The past is the past.  Today is a new day.  Valerie would say to any woman, “Let go, and see what God can do.”