Today Anita and I are celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary! There won’t be a lot of fanfare, though. Alan Roth is coming to begin laying carpet in our basement today, so I need to be around to move furniture, etc. We’re still spending money for materials in our basement project, so that is our anniversary gift to each other. We are going out to eat with Al & Jo Fair tonight in Ft. Wayne, so that will be our celebration.

Thirty-five years is a long time. When we got married things were a lot different than they are today. First, we were a lot younger then. Also, we were a lot dumber than we are now. We made a lot of marriage mistakes in those early days. We got off on the wrong foot in a lot of ways. But those struggles helped to make us what we are today. We are able to help other young couples in their difficulties because we can identify with what they struggle with. And we have solid answers because we also walked down that path.

We learned (are learning?) the hard way that it is the Lord’s desire that “each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband” (Ephesians 5:33).

Tags: marriage, mistakes

Claudia Taylor, at age 21, was visiting at the home of a friend in Austin, Texas, when the lanky secretary of a congressman dropped in. The secretary invited Claudia to breakfast the next day. She listened with such enthusiastic interest that he decided to make a day of it with her. Before nightfall, he proposed marriage and she accepted! During the wedding ceremony, young Lyndon pressed upon the finger of his young bride a $2.50 ring purchased at Sears, Roebuck, and Company.

That may sound like a marriage destined for failure, but that’s the true story of how Lyndon B. Johnson first met Claudia “Ladybird” Taylor. Their marriage was of storybook proportions.

How long of a dating period did you have with Jesus before you made your decision to commit your life to Him?

Tags: Johnson, marriage

When I first learned that I had prostate cancer, I had to struggle with some personal emotions. How would this affect my ministry, how would this affect my longevity, but of greatest impact to me, how would this affect my relationship with my wife? Intimacy is the sign of the covenant of marriage and we both take that very seriously.

So I had to do some serious soul-searching, and it led to some very open conversations between Anita and I, actually opening some doors that we had shut long ago. So, already, even before the surgery, God has done some really neat healing and growth in both of us.  Sometimes the best healings are not physical, but spiritual or emotional! Those, only God can do.

What spiritual or emotional healing has God recently done in your life?

Tags: healing, marriage

Girl Scouts are busy out there selling cookies right now.  We all know this is an annual fund-raiser for the Girl Scouts.  And we all know how good these cookies are.  I’m looking at a half-eaten box of Thin Mints (my favorite) as I write this.  How can anything that tastes so delicious have all those unsavory ingredients that are listed on the label?  Such things as thiamine mononitrate, folic acid, and cocoa processed with alkali!  Yuck!  There’s got to be a lesson in that somewhere.

Perhaps we learn that for anything to be really “good” it must also have some elements that aren’t so good.  Like marriage, for example.  For there to be a really good marriage, there must be a testing time that brings out the worst in each partner so it can be dealt with so only the good remains.  That takes a process of time and involves some yucky stuff, but, boy, is it worth it in the end!  Hang in there; it gets better.

Tags: cookies, Girl Scouts, good, marriage