Tina Pinson – Real Life Romance – Part 1 of 2

Shannon here: Women’s fiction author, Tina Pinson shares her real life romance plus a chance to win a copy of her latest release: Then There Was Grace. Comment on any post dated Sept 6 – 7 to get your name in the drawing. Deadline: Sept 14th, 11:59 pm central time. Here’s Tina:

There’s a saying…

Once you’ve gone, you can’t go back home.

I get that on some emotional levels. I understand that I have traveled through life and there are just some things I don’t want to relive. Thank God I don’t have to. (There are days when I wished I were little again and the world would go away.)

I can go back physically.

Of course not with the same lithe young body I used to have. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Still, every time hubby and I head back to our old haunts in Denver to wax nostalgic about meeting and falling in love, after 33 years of marriage, some of those places are dilapidated or just gone and some of them remain and have flourished.

Hubby and I met during youth group at a church in Commerce City, Colorado. A few years later we walked down the aisle there and exchanged vows. The church still stands. The red brick isn’t quite as red. The street has changed as trees have grown and been cut, and traffic is a bit more congested. A look inside would show more changes and I doubt I’d find too many of my old friends.

We dated at places like Celebrity Sports Center, Lakeside, Elitches, and the drive theaters on Wadworths to name a few.

Elitches has grown and now has a waterpark. Lakeside hangs on sort of. The building for the Sports Center houses other businesses. And the drive theaters where we shared popcorn and kisses have disappeared. One was razed for a Pace Warehouse, where we used to shop when our children were little and hubby did his monthly reserve duty, and that has even changed too.

The school where we spent our teen years — with laughter and angst — and graduated, was torn down and moved to the Arsenal. It retains the name, but now it newer and bigger and faster and… It doesn’t feel like mine anymore. And the Arsenal, well, it not the Arsenal anymore, it morphed into business parks and marketplaces.

Stapleton, the airport where I met hubby on many occasion and threw myself into his arms when he flew home from long months serving in the Navy, has become another business park. (Boy people got busy while we were away.)

Driving by our homes, we find they still stand, but we wonder, ‘were they really that small?’

And my how the years have taken their toil.

While we were growing our love, the world and the places that used to define us back when, changed too.

Reminds me of a song Madonna sang. This used to be my playground, this used to be my childhood dream. This used to be the place I ran to whenever I was in need of a friend…

But the place old familiar places were gone. They weren’t the old friends I knew anymore.

One might wonder how they could do that. How could they let the place I used to call home get to such a state or tear it down? Don’t they understand that our world began there? Our dreams and love took flight in those places?

No, no, perhaps they don’t.

And while I go back and look to see what changed, and sometimes grow sad that it has, I have to remember, that while our old haunts were changing, hubby and I were changing too. All we have to do is look in the mirror.

Even if the Celebrity Sports Center remained, I doubt I could stay up all hours bowling and swimming and playing games. And we’d probably fall asleep during the twin movie at the drive in. We actually did that once as teenagers and I got home after my curfew and got in trouble.

I wouldn’t get in trouble now.

We visited Elitches this past summer. I have to admit it didn’t hold the same fascination for hubby and I that it held for the lovestruck teenagers of our youth. We felt overwhelmed by people and just a touch ripped off by the cost.

Time moved on and so did we. God took us to new places, new dreams and new memories.

And after 33 years, our love grew. Was it all easy? Nope. Did we have to raze a few things and allow new things to take seed and mature? Yeah. But we did, so much so that anyplace God took us became home and ours simply because we were together.

I don’t know where the next 33 years will take us. That can be scary and kind of exciting, but God will be with us and I’ll have hubby’s hand to hold. (I hope for many seasons to come.)

And I also know that while the world changes and falls apart only to rebuild itself in a new form and fashion around us. While we change and age and grow. While life happens…

Faith, hope and love remain.

And the greatest of these is Love.

About Tina: Tina Pinson resides in Mesa, Arizona with her husband of thirty plus years, Danny. They are blessed to have three sons, and seven grandchildren.

Tina started her first novel in elementary school. Her love of writing has caused her to seek creative outlets be it writing poetry, songs, or stories. She also loves to doodle and enjoys gardening.

It is her prayer that her stories, though fiction, will transport you to worlds beyond and touch your spirit and give you a closer insight to yourself and God.

In the Manor of the Ghost, Touched By Mercy, To Carry her Cross, and the first three installments of the Shadow Series When Shadows Fall, Shadowed Dreams and To Catch a Shadow are available through Desert Breeze Publishing and major retailers like Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Christianbooks.

In the Manor of the Ghost is now available in print.

Look for Christmas in Shades of Gray an offbeat contemporary Dickens type Christmas tale in December. This Shadowed Land (Shadow Series Book 4) the continuing story of Matthew and Rebekah on the Oregon Trail releases early 2014. Learn more and connect:  Tina’s Blog, Twitter:@Tina_Pinson, Facebook– https://www.facebook.com/TinaEPinsonAuthor, Pinterest http://pinterest.com/tinapinson/.

About the book – Then There Was Grace:

He was ready to live without Grace, until he lost her. He thought he didn’t deserve grace then it found him.

Bored, Adam is prepared to divorce Grace, his wife of seven years. Then Grace is killed leaving him to raise Faith and Hope. The twins have no idea why the world’s gone crazy. They just want their mother home and Adam isn’t sure what to tell them. How can he tell them the truth, when he’s not sure what the truth is? When he doesn’t want to believe it himself?

Grace’s family and Adam’s brother come to help and Adam is apprehensive to open up to them. Their grace toward him only magnifies his loss. His guilt. If Grace would come home. He’d be a better husband. Father. Anything to stop the guilt ravaging his soul. But the more he uncovers about Grace, the more guilt rages. Adam is a man with no heart. A man with no faith. A man with no God. Then there was grace.

Purchase Links: http://www.desertbreezepublishing.com/then-there-was-grace-epub/

Desert Breeze Bookstore:

When Shadows Fall

Touched By Mercy

In the Manor of the Ghost

Shadowed Dreams

To Catch A Shadow

To Carry Her Cross

Come back Sept 7th for Tina’s romantic excerpt!