DATING

In 1980, I moved home from Roseville, Michigan which is a suberb of Detroit, Michigan. I worked in a church as a youth director. Youth was not my thing. I moved home on New Year's Eve and started the New Year back home in Huntington. I enrolled in graduate courses and found a job the following fall working in the same daycare center I had worked in before I left for seminary. I applied for a position as a home ec teacher in a vocational school in Ashland, Kentucky. I went to work there in the Spring of 1981. I taught Child Development for four years. While teaching child development to high school as well as adult students, I ran a small scale day care facility in conjunction with the program. The class trained Child Care workers for day care center work.

I met my husband, Stephen Kanous Gant, while teaching there in Ashland in December 1982. He was enrolled in an adult course in Radio and TV repair. He was awfully good with things of that nature. We become engaged in Decmber 1983 and were married in April of 1984.

I was still going to church when I met Steve. However, I had been dating a gentleman from my church just previously to meeting Steve, named Rod. We had a very emotional relationship as far as I was concerned. I really thought that I was in love with him and he had asked me to marry him. I was thinking that was what would happen, but he began cutting himself off from me. Our relationship was not healthy and while I "technically" remained pure, it was getting harder and harder each time we were together. I think that was part of the reason that Rod broke the relationship off, and also because he had two children from a previous marriage who did not like me. He was really influenced by his children, even though they were relatively young at the time. Not that that was a bad thing, but some of their reasons for not liking me had nothing to do with realty. They were jealous of our relationship and he couldn't see that. I liked the boys OK, but I know it would have been difficult had we married.

Another reason, I think that Rod broke off the relationship was because of money. He was a construction worker and did not work regularly. He also did not plan and save for the times he was not working, which was not very wise. He was a musician by heart and really knew music and wanted to go into music ministry. In fact he led the worship at our church. We both sang in the choir at the time we were dating. He really wanted to attend Moody Bible Institute and major in music. The plan was that we would marry, I would work while he went to school, which is what a lot of people do. Couples in seminary did that: wives worked and put husbands through seminary. My mom worked and put my dad through pharmacy college. I wasn't opposed to it. But that never happened. We broke up, I met Steve and married him instead.

I found out recently (as in the last year) that Moody Bible Institute has a policy that the men have to work and go to school and that wives are not expected to work as in a more biblical model. I am sure that is probably why he gave up the idea of going to Moody. Also it is very hard to get in and accepted. You have to be exceptional to get in. He was talented, but not exceptional.

Anyway, I was really depressed about breaking up with Rod. We dated on and off for over a year. It was in the fall of 1982 that we really broke up finally. I was really discouraged about men and dating and just came to a point that I was content with being single. Then I met Steve. He was rather shy and just opposite of Rod in everyway. Rod was blonde haired and blue eyed, Steve had dark hair and dark eyes. Rod was always clean shaven and Steve had a mustache. He was older than Rod and definitely more mature. Rod was very tall and while Steve was tall, he wasn't as tall as Rod.

Steve had also been married before. I don't know why I was attracted to men who had already been married. This should have been a major red flag. Both times, but I wasn't taking God's Word completely to heart. I knew what scripture said about being unequally yoked, while I didn't think it applied to either Steve or Rod, I knew that, because they both had been married it really wasn't a good idea to date either of them. But there were hardly any men that I knew that were single and not previously married or if they hadn't been married before, they were not "pure." The 70's and 80's still had a very liberal view of committed relationships. Divorce was high and the attitude prevailed that if you get married and it doesn't work out get a divorce. Well, I knew that I did not want to be in that mindset. So when Steve and I began discussing marriage, I told him that while, he had been divorced and things hadn't worked out in the past, that regardless of what happened, I was not leaving and was in for the duration.

We became engaged on Christmas Eve, 1983 and planned a wedding to elope in April of 1984. Yes we eloped. I really thought I would regret it, but that is one thing that I can say, I do not regret. It was the most fun planning the wedding and our honeymoon. We got married on my Spring Break from school. Got married on Tuesday morning, left on our honeymoon trip and returned on Friday afternoon. I went back to work the next Monday. Somehow somebody found out that I had gotten married, so no one was surprised. My parents were upset, however, and definitely let us know about it. But they eventually got over it and my mom took me shopping, paid for my dress and bought us some things for our home. I think in the long run, though, they were relieved that they did not have the expense of a huge wedding like my sister's and decided that elopement wasn't so bad after all. Although they would have settled for a small wedding with family and a few friends, there was virtually no cost to them for anything except what they wanted to pay for, which in reality had already been paid for, like my dress.

I have some thoughts about dating, but I am going to save those for my next blog.