Shannon here: LangMarc inspirational nonfiction author, Jude Urbanski shares her real life romance. Jude is offering her book as a bonus giveawy this week: I Can’t Remember Me. The romance novel will be announced Oct. 13. Comment on any post dated Oct 11 – 15 by Oct 16, 8:00 PM Central to be in both drawings. Here’s Jude:
Some men hide the diamond at the bottom of the champagne glass.
Some men hire a plane to fly the banner.
Some men bow on bended knee.
“I don’t have a race this weekend, if you want to get married.”
This was my sweetheart’s proposal as we sat watching TV at his house late one night. I was stunned speechless and I mean literally. I couldn’t even respond. Maybe because we’d only dated a short while and maybe because I couldn’t believe what he was saying. Anyway, I went home without answering, but called him early the next morning and said, “I don’t want to get married this weekend or even this year, maybe next year.”
We were married eight weeks later. That was nearly twenty-two years ago.
Now for back story!
Conrad was a competitive runner who worked life around his races. He had been a handsome, divorced bachelor twelve years and had five adult kids. I was newly and unhappily divorced for only three years, after a lifetime of marriage, and had three grown children.
Call it crazy. Call it love. But most of all, call it courageous. Because both of us buckled on courage to take the big step again. We had meant our original marriages to be forever, but found that in our broken and fallen world, God allows simple grace.
After we married, our college age children moved into my house and I moved into Conrad’s. Amazing things happened. In time, we asked our kids to move because they weren’t taking care of the house to suit us and I asked if we could to move because Conrad’s house never became ‘my house.’ And he’d said, “I’m not attached to this house.” But, oh, when I wanted to change things! You can imagine how it went!
It has taken God’s love and grace to blend a family of eight that has grown to include six spouses and almost twenty grandchildren. Even though the original family can never be re-created and we haven’t done everything perfectly, we have done well. It’s been worth the doing.
The Urban-Martin clan is beautiful, even with all its warts.
About Jude: Jude is the author of one non-fiction book, I Can’t Remember Me (LangMarc Publishing, 2006), which covers the family’s journey through a dark period of her daughter’s car accident and traumatic brain injury. She has completed two women’s fiction novels, has several published articles and is a regular contributor to a magazine on spirituality and women’s health. She is a former women’s health nurse practitioner. Find her blog at judeurbanski.blogstream.com.
Come back Oct 13 & 15 for Miralee Ferrells’ Real life Romance and book giveaway.
May not have been romantic, but 8 weeks later must tell the real truth…LOL
Dear GA,
It’s almost 22 years later that tells the truth. Love is a commitment.
It’s awesome how a common string runs through every story, but how different and unique each story is. No matter how old we become, romance is always a sweet and a bittersweet time to experience. At least my husband and I are doing something we promised 35 years ago when we married. We ARE growing old together. Yesterday was my 72nd birthday and my husband’s 75th birthday. Now, how did we manage to end up finding a partner with the same birthday? Grace, pure grace of God. I don’t call this a coincidence, I have coined the phrase,, Godincidence. I’ll leave it at that and trust God with the rest. I’m anxious to learn more about Jude and Conrad’s story. Hopefully I will get a chance to read it.
Blessings,
Barb Shelton
barbjan10 at tx dot rr dot com
Thanks for sharing your story, Jude. I love your intro. Too cute!
Loved White Roses. Can’t wait to read White Doves. My email is: rft-1961@hotmail.com.
Jude, I loved hearing your personal story with Conrad. What an inspiration, and so funny about the whole clan and the houses, etc. Thanks so much for sharing. Selfishly, I’d dearly love to win a copy of “I Can’t Remember Me” since it might give me insight into the second book, “Second Time Around,” of my series that I’m preparing to pitch to my publisher in the near future. As we’ve discussed previously, it deals with a brain injury and amnesia, so I’m sure your book would give me some unique insights from the perspective of someone who’s been there and experienced the pain and the triumphs. On a personal level, I’d love to know more about a dear writer friend from Indiana (in Muncie, my old stomping ground at BSU!). In any case, I’m sure I’ll get a copy of your book soon! Blessings to you, my friend, and many more happy years with Conrad!! Thanks so much for sharing!
Love the story ! Proposal might not have had all the romance you might want but 22 years of marriage is something very special!!!
Thank you for sharing your story Jude, as I can relate alot with your story. Would like to hear more. Also would like to win a copy of : I can’t remember me. I think it will be a good book. God bless you and your family. You probably have your hands full.
What a fun story to hand down through the generations! Your book sounds like it could be very helpful to others going through similar tragedies. Faith will get us through!
I appreciate Jude for being a great guest on my blog and everyone who stopped by to comment.
JoAnn Durgin got her wish. She won the random drawing for I Can’t Remember Me.
JoAnn, way to go girl! For all of you who commented I read and enjoyed your comments. God did not promise an easy life, but just that He’d be with us. Blessings to you all. Jude
Jude! It was wonderful to pop over here and find you featured! What a wonderful story of God’s grace and sweet blessing. Thanks so much for sharing it with us.