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Call me, and I’ll come home and pay you.\u2019 So that’s how he got my phone number. He asked if I wanted to grab something to eat. We ate at Marvin\u2019s, and he went back home. I thought I might hear from him, you know? Nothing,\u201d Gina said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was 2012, and Gina had just gotten her first smartphone. A couple of months later, a friend asked Gina if she had ever checked her voicemail. Gina insisted she didn\u2019t have voicemail; she\u2019d never set it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said, \u201cSo one night I started playing with the phone, and sure enough, all these messages started coming through. He had called me three or four times and left messages. And so the next day, I called him and told him what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But why did David keep calling?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said, \u201cWell, I figure a lot of times people don’t answer a phone when they don\u2019t recognize the number. My phone has a 615 area code, so it wouldn\u2019t have been familiar. I was getting ready to delete her number from my phone when she called.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the first visit, David didn\u2019t have her number, but he still thought about contacting her again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe first time I came down here to work, I thought she was really nice. I started to come back to see her, but I didn\u2019t want her to think I was a stalker. So we missed another year, right there, apart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But after Gina\u2019s call, the distance shortened. The couple began dating in 2012, managing life between her home in Lincoln County and his in Rutherford County. Part of the reason they go so well together is the number of common interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gina said, \u201cWe like the same things; we just clicked. I know it wasn’t in God’s plan, but it’s a shame we didn’t meet each other 30 years ago.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The couple spends all their time outdoors, weather permitting, so nothing seemed unusual the day they were out on the farm in their side-by-side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe took me back there and stopped exactly where I first saw him. He wanted to get out, and we [walked] around until we got to the exact spot where he first saw me. He proposed to me on the hillside where I first met him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jeweler Eva Spray always wanted to know when they would get married, and David promised she\u2019d be the first to know. He kept his promise, and Spray made a house call to assist him in picking out the ring. It was almost comical in hindsight, trying to sneak her onto the property without Gina knowing what was happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The couple married in 2021. \u201cWasn\u2019t no need rushing into it,\u201d David laughed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it all started with an ad in the Exchange.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe tells everybody he got me out of the Exchange or from farmersonly.com,\u201d Gina said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David said, \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t have happened otherwise because I never would have been down here and run across her. We dated for almost 10 years, but it seemed like we were married anyway, so it wasn’t that different after we married. People think we’ve been married for 30 or 40 years wherever we go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s been really nice,\u201d David said. \u201cWe\u2019re just as close right now as we were the first day. A lot of times, after a couple of years, some people grow apart or soon divorce. But we have so many of the same interests, and she enjoys the work I do and likes going with me to look at jobs because I’m always going somewhere different. Something here always needs doing\u2014like baling the hay\u2014and we do it together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n David\u2019s advice for a strong relationship is to always give it your best, be honest, and trust the Lord. GN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Good News Magazine shares the story of two local residents who found love through local EMG publication The Farmers’ Exchange.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9969,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27],"class_list":["post-9955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature","tag-january"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/goodnewsmags.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/DSC01084-1024x683.jpg\")
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