Never Let Her Go

You might think a singer who acts in Broadway musicals and had a number-one hit with the song "You Light Up My Life" would be an incurable romantic. But talk to Debby Boone, and you'll find that's not the case.

"Neither one of us is really a schmaltzy romantic," she says of herself and Gabriel Ferrer, her husband of 18 years. "I like new and creative ways for people to express how they feel without that saccharine, Hallmark style of sentiment."

So does she sing personal love songs to her husband? "That doesn't work somehow," she admits. But she loves it when her artist husband gets creative in the romance department.

"I was doing South Pacific in New York," she recalls, "and Gabri was home with the kids [in California]. I was insecure about my job because it was a new show and we had a very short rehearsal time. Opening night was just terrorizing, and I had no husband there to calm me down and support me.

"Then a Federal Express package showed up. It was a watercolor painting of a sunset on the beach with the words 'Once you have found her, never let her go.' That's a line from one of the songs in South Pacific. I say I'm not romantic, but hey, I burst into tears."

Debby displayed the painting in her dressing room, and, not being overly romantic, she now keeps it in her bathroom at home.

"Every time I see it, I think, 'This is just perfect. He always seems to know just the right thing to say.'"

1998 by the author or Christianity Today/Marriage Partnership magazine. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or e-mailmp@marriagepartnership.com.

Read more articles that highlight writing by Christian women at ChristianityToday.com/Women