With One Taste: Heaven's Promise
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About this ebook
Tears whisper down Janelle's cheeks as she grieves the loss of her husband, Daniel, gone now for one year. She looks out over turbulent Lake Como in St. Paul, Minnesota, and has never felt more alone. When a stranger offers her comfort, she willingly goes into his arms to cry into his chest all of the loss she feels. In his arms she begins to feel secure and other longings take over. For just this moment, Janelle wants to know what it feels like to live again and feel something other than the ache of letting go.
Paul doesn't know why he's gone for a walk on such a cold and wet day. Paul's aborted hopes of an engagement with Cally Bartelt fills his mind and heart with grief. Her book, In Time, tore up his pride. Yes, Paul knows Cally is happy with her new husband, the infamous Michael Paige, but Paul can't help but feel loss whenever he thinks of her.
When Paul sees a stranger crying at the edge of the lake, he knows he can't leave her to her grief. As he holds the weeping woman, he feels in his spirit he is doing just as God has willed. When he feels the prompt to kiss the woman in his arms, he is at once stunned by the thought, but when she looks up at him with trust and expectation, he dips his head and captures her lips with his own. Never has Paul felt like this. Passion bursts in all of its decadent colors, and he doesn't even know her name. When the stranger pulls back and whispers, "Thank you," he doesn't know what to say. When she steps out of his arms and walks away, he wants to call out to her, but the still small voice in his heart says, "Let her go, Paul."
Neither Paul nor Janelle believe they will ever see each other again, but Janelle turns up in Paul's college course on nineteenth century women’s fiction a week later. Janelle is impressed with Paul’s instruction, and Paul is equally impressed by Janelle’s intelligence and her ability to grasp the concepts he is imparting to his class.
Janelle and Paul have chance meetings outside of the classroom. He is there when she visits the Como Zoo with her children and offers comfort when she remembers the circumstances of her husband’s death. He prays for her in courtyard of the university when she is gripped by her loss. When she visits a new church, Paul is there. He holds her close during worship service when the congregation sings, “He takes a way yet gives”—a song sung at Janelle’s husband’s funeral.
As Paul’s yearnings for Janelle grow, he knows that he would never be able to live without her. Professional honesty prevents him from pursuing her romantically until after her final. When he holds her in his office afterwards, he knows that he would only be satisfied if Janelle would agree to be his wife.
Their romance blooms softly. They share the depths of their hurts—Janelle’s guilt over not staying pure before marrying—Paul’s grief over being raised by a clinically depressed mother. God is in the midst of this couple as their relationship passes through the stages of their engagement until their final joining as man and wife.
Lisa Mary Erler
When I was a teenager I had two primary dreams. I wanted to write and publish novels that readers would enjoy and find meaning in, and I wanted to be married with four children—two boys and two girls (in that order). I wanted to stay home and not have them go to babysitters like I had to.I met my husband the second week of my freshman year. I fell instantly into like when I met him and knew we’d be kindred spirits. As our friendship progressed over six months, I fell in love. We were engaged a few months after we started dating. We married two years later.For my degree I chose English Literature with a minor in technical writing. I chose technical writing because I thought it would be a practical way to have a career as a writer. I didn’t think I was any good at writing fiction, and I wasn’t. I had no “grand” idea. I was a fair poetry writer. I loved writing about literature, and I enjoyed technical writing. I sort of planned on that being my career when I finished college, but I lived perpetually in the moment.We married the summer before our senior year. The first five months of our married life was incredibly romantic. We were students, so we were poor. We lived in a small one-bedroom studio apartment. We had no air conditioning, so the summer nights were quite hot and humid in Wisconsin.Our car didn’t work, so we biked and walked everywhere. On summer evenings my husband loved to watch spiders spinning webs. He would stand their fascinated by the intricate patterns. I stood there fascinated with him. For groceries, we pulled a rickety wagon. We found coupons on campus for free two-liters of pop. Every day we redeemed these coupons for a bit more than a month. We had a lot of free pop to drink, which is kind of funny because neither of us are all that into pop. We would bike to a bakery for day-old bread.The November after our wedding, we became pregnant with my oldest son. I was sick for months. I made it through finals and then through another semester of class. Living perpetually in the moment helped me adjust to the fact I would be an at-home mom and wouldn’t start a career as a technical writer. I was thrilled! But being so young as a mom I was ill-prepared to meet the demands of an infant.I fulfilled one-fourth of my dream. #1My husband thought I needed more education. He thought English was a degree in the obvious and that I’d never get a decent paying job with only that as a degree. He pushed me into going to the U of M Twin Cities for a BA in computer science. It didn’t make my heart “sing”, but I did fairly well in my coursework. Baby #2 arrived at the end of my second year—another boy! I was one-half done with a dream. I was able to be a full time mom and a part time student for two more years.I graduated with the BA in computer science. My husband agreed that I should be home with the boys longer, so I didn’t get a job. Living perpetually in the moment led to baby #3—a girl! Of course, I had to stay home with her like I stayed home with the boys. I was now three-fourths done with my dream!And then it came time to make my writing dreams come true. When my little girl was two, I started writing novels. It was both difficult and easy. The ideas flowed one after another and the first book—In Time came out of me in a couple months. The difficult part was balancing being an at-home mom and writing. The story-line that took me over twenty years to finalize was birthed in those first few months.Still balancing writing and motherhood, I had baby #4—another girl!I stayed home with my children for twenty years, determined to be my kids’ mom. It was tough, yet rewarding, and if I had a choice, I’d do it all over again.While I raised my children I wrote several novels. I reworked and reworked novels, trying to find the best way to tell the stories I had envisioned.The era of being an at-home mom ended. I received a masters in Computer Science, and now I work as a Business Analyst for my professional career.I still write but not nearly as much as I used to.I still live perpetually in the moment and probably always will. I’ve found that unplanned moments are precious. Trying to “control” life has never worked for me. I live in a world of the “unexpected”, free to just enjoy life as it goes.
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