HOW I FOUND A VIRTUOUS WOMAN

How I Found a Virtuous Woman
By Eddie Smith
 
Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life (Prov. 31:10-12, KJV).
 
The summer of 1970 was a lonely time for me, living in motels, moving from town to town, city to city as a single, itinerant evangelist in my twenties. Every night when the revival services concluded, I was off to a late-night meal and then to a lonely motel room.
    Because of my travel schedule, I rarely spent time at my small apartment in South Houston. For the most part, it was only a place to hang my clothes and stash boxes of my unsold record albums. It, too, was a lonely spot.
 
The Encounter
    Walking into the old auditorium of First Baptist Church that Sunday night, then located in downtown Houston, little did I know how my life was about to be changed. I was there to sing for a citywide youth rally, where I would be sharing the stage with a sharp contemporary Christian singing group from Houston Baptist University called "Implosion." They were directed by Pete Sanchez, who would later write the classic worship chorus “I Exalt Thee” and appear on several Hosanna Integrity worship albums.
    As the former director of The Spurrlows, a nationally-known contemporary musical group at the time, I immediately found myself interested in Implosion’s work from a technical standpoint. Impressed by their sharp visual presentation and tight vocal harmonies, I was really into the concert. That is, until I caught sight of Pete’s lead soprano—a slight, cute blonde with a magnificent voice. The rest of the evening, my thoughts were only about her.
    Following the service, I stopped a member of the group to ask about her and whether she was married. He assured me that Alice Day wasn’t married, although she had several admirers waiting in the wings.
    Mentally unplugging for the evening, I took refuge in my usual late-night burger and milkshake and made my way to the lonely solitude of my South Houston apartment. (To this day my heart goes out to singles. To remain single requires a grace gift from the Lord!)
 
An Unexpected Bonus!
    On the schedule for the following night was ministry at Pulpit in the Shadows, a street ministry designed to reach out to drug addicts and to the homeless. Parking my car near Pulpit in the Shadows and locking all the doors, I worked my way through an odorous crowd of hippies and winos to get inside the run-down, white-framed, abandoned church building. Body odors mixed with the pungent, acrid smell of marijuana smoke was almost stifling.
    My ears pricked up when I heard the familiar sounds of musicians warming up and instruments being tuned. Suddenly, my heart did a back flip! There vocalizing on stage was the same beautiful, blonde soprano. Immediately I knew that this week was going to be different!
    After the service, everyone was challenged to pair up and go into the streets to witness for Christ. Here was my chance! Fighting my way through the crowd to the place where Alice Day was standing, I introduced myself to her. I handed her a stack of gospel tracts and invited her to go out witnessing with me.
    She declined. My heart sank, but I wouldn’t be deterred. So I asked, “Can we go for coffee when this is over?”
Again, she declined. Disappointed, I left solo.
 
If at First You Don’t Succeed . . .
    On Tuesday, the second night of the three-day meeting, I approached Alice again with the same offer at the close of the service. This time she agreed to go. We went together into the streets of downtown Houston, passing out tracts, sharing the gospel message and praying for the people. The power of prayer was evident that night, as several people trusted Christ as their Savior. It was an awesome evening! God blended our gifts and skills together in a powerful way.
    Now I had been a soul winner since elementary school, faithfully sharing my faith through high school, the Navy and college. During the late 1960s, at the height of the hippie revolution, I had worked two years on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip. We witnessed in bars, nightclubs, strip joints, psychedelic “trip” rooms, X-rated movie theaters and biker hangouts.
    With the exception of my own mother, a faithful and strong witness, I had never met a woman as bold as Alice. This woman was fearless! She witnessed to everything that moved. And if it didn’t move, she stuck a gospel tract on it!
There was something special about her. She possessed an intense passion for the Lord and compassion for the lost. Prayer was important to her—more important to her than it was to me and to most other Christians I had known. That night she shared with me about her life and her call to the ministry. Once more I invited her to go with me to get something to eat. Again, she declined!
 
And I Thought I Didn’t Have a Prayer . . .
    Arriving early Wednesday night, I waited impatiently until time for us to hit the streets again. Alice agreed to join me once more and we were off! The experience was even more dynamic than the night before. God’s Holy Spirit was on us! The effect of our ministry together was simply greater than the sum of its parts. It was obvious to me that God was doing something special!
    Later that night when we returned to Pulpit in the Shadows, again I suggested that we go out for coffee. Again she refused.
    “Alice, you need to get to know me,” I blurted out presumptuously. “I’m going to marry you!” Why I said that I cannot explain.
    Obviously jolted by my statement, yet eminently unflappable, she bravely smiled and said, “Okay, let’s go eat.”
    Dr. J. Vernon McGee, the late teacher and host of “Through the Bible,” once said on his radio program, “I asked my wife to marry me on our second date. I waited till then because I didn’t want her to think I was in a hurry.”
    The next six weeks were like a whirlwind as I traveled the eastern seaboard ministering in citywide evangelistic crusades. Every night from my hotel room, I would spend at least an hour on the phone with Alice at her apartment in Houston. We talked about every facet of our lives, shared our life dreams with each other and prayed for God’s will.
    Alice’s friends had told me of her deep commitment to the Lord. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Gene Day of Lake Jackson, Texas, sixty miles south of Houston, were longtime members of the First Baptist Church. Martha, Alice’s mother, had taught Sunday School and faithfully served the Lord for decades. Before going to be with the Lord, Mr. Day was a beloved football coach. A football stadium in Lake Jackson was posthumously named after him.
    Alice had been saved and had surrendered to the ministry at age 15. From the time she was saved, she began praying for her husband-to-be. I had begun to think I didn’t have a prayer with her. Yet before we had ever met, she had been praying for me! Jim Bob Griffin, her former youth pastor, said she had a beautiful testimony. She was a treasure!
    She was learning how to be an intercessor when I met her, although what that meant was not clear to me then. What was clear to me was her pattern of cutting short our dates for yet another prayer meeting.
    Many dinners together, dozens of roses, reams of correspondence and several lengthy long-distance phone bills later, we were married. We didn’t have a beautiful church wedding, which we still regret. Because of my schedule, we were married “on the run” between revival meetings.
    That was then.
 
    Yesterday in Colorado Springs I watched with pride as she walked the aisle in cap and gown to receive her doctor’s degree. She has worked long and hard for it, while writing several books, traveling hundreds of thousands of miles, and being a faithful productive wife and loving mother and grandmother.
 
A virtuous woman indeed! Congratulations Sweetheart!