She wanted to break up with me. She left early the next day to head back to college. I decided to pursue her, but her mind was set. Susie eventually married that guy. I felt like one of the walking wounded.

We get impatient waiting one minute for the microwave! But I have had some extra-long waits in my life that could have sent me crashing into despair were it not for God’s love.

If the soft touch of a red-lipstick kiss on the church flyer didn’t grab the attention of the congregation in Gaithersburg, Md., the title of the sermons did: “Surviving in a Sex-crazed Culture.”

An editor at Time magazine once confided in Marabel Morgan that he came away from a cocktail party with high-heel marks all over his chest at the mere mention of her name. And what heinous crime did Morgan commit that could provoke such a sharp reaction? Morgan wrote a book in the early 1970s that sold more than 5 million copies about how she salvaged her marriage.

Members of the Kenwood Country Club in Bethesda, Md., still may be talking about a sight that greeted them one recent Saturday morning. A smartly attired single woman advertised her marital intentions with a button that read like a campaign slogan: “Say I Do in 92.”