The Marrying Kind, Part I

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Margaret

I’ve been thinking about Nate all day. Of course I think about him every day, but today it’s been hour-to-hour. For some reason I’ve been focused on the day we got engaged, 41 years ago this month.

Nate was in the U. S. Army at the time, based at Ft. Riley, Kansas. We’d been maintaining our relationship long distance for many months and needed to be together. So when he arranged to get away from the base, I took a train from Chicago to Topeka.

I had an inkling he was going to pop the question that weekend, because he’d sent a mysterious package to my Chicago apartment with clear instructions not to open it. Instead I was to bring it to Kansas.

When you’re in the Army, you don’t have much say over where you’ll be when. He’d ordered the ring on his last trip home, and rather than risk letting it arrive at the base, he’d sent it to my address. I knew enough not to ask questions.

Nate and I had met on a blind date during our senior year in college, dating sporadically until graduation. But the Viet Nam war was raging, and he had a low draft number. To avoid being drafted, he participated in ROTC and hoped for Officer Candidate School.

It had been two years since we’d graduated, but during that time we hadn’t spent much time together and hadn’t talked of marriage. It had been a relationship based on letters and occasional phone calls, during which we’d both dated others and hadn’t yet talked of commitment. But a strong friendship had solidified.

When Christmas of 1968 arrived, however, we’d gotten together over the holidays, and the relationship took off, and by March we were “dancing around permanency.” I decided I shouldn’t proceed without getting some counsel and went to Dad, the logical, reasoning parent.

Without checking any notes or taking an old, dog-eared list from his wallet, he responded with seven or eight check-points for me. He said he’d used them before he married Mom, and it had worked out “pretty good.”

I remember his top five, which he listed in importance:

(1) Make sure he’s a Christian.

(2) A strong sense of humor will be an asset.

(3) Watch to see how he treats his own parents.

(4) Good general health will lessen the stress in marriage.

(5) Marry someone who will bring to the relationship what you don’t have.

Nate passed with flying colors, and we got engaged that July, 1969, in Kansas.

As soon as I’d said “yes” and he’d put the ring on my finger, he ran into the bathroom, emerging with a big smile, a dozen red roses and a fully decorated double-layer cake with lit candles! “I figured we’d want to celebrate, and this was all I could think of!” He was a man in love.

Throughout the train ride home, I stared at my engagement ring, bursting to announce our plans. And to this day it’s my favorite piece of jewelry.

I don’t think I’ll ever take it off.

“Treat your wife with understanding… She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life.” (1 Peter 3:7)

Delayed Gratification

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Margaret

When our Nelson was three years old, he noticed the table set for dinner and climbed into his junior chair, hoping for something to eat. I was busy dishing up four bowls of fruit when he began to whine. “I’m hungry! I wanna eat now!”

“Pretty soon,” I said. “When Papa gets home.”

As his complaining escalated, I became irritated he wouldn’t wait and told him to go find something to do away from the kitchen. But before he did, he asked three weighty questions.

“Do I have to obey you?”

“You should,” I said.

“But do you have to obey anyone?”

For the sake of the analogy, I said, “Yes. Papa.”

“Then who does Papa have to obey?”

I could see where he was going. “Jesus,” I said.

There was a pause, and then he said, “Well… I just heard the Lord Jesus tell you, ‘Give that Nelson a bowl of fruit’!”

It was good theology, but he still had to wait.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The older I get, the more I see that life is full of unpleasant waiting. This morning during my prayer time, every situation I prayed over was something I’d been praying about for a long time. In some cases it’s been decades.

God isn’t asleep at the switch, and he’s not ignoring me. To the contrary, every one of my prayers has been heard and answered. But almost every answer has been, “Wait.” There’s a valid reason, though. As I’m asking the Lord to do things in the lives of others, he’s also interested in doing things in mine. And insisting I wait is effective toward that end.

He is also “setting the scene” for the best possible outcome, one that belongs to him.

Thirty years ago when our first three children were three, five and seven, they begged to have their own gardens. We’d had a 50 x 60 ft. kitchen garden in previous years, and although the kids had sporadically participated, Nate and I had done most of the work. They did help husk corn for dinner and pick beans to boil, but of course that was the fun part, the grand finale.

I liked the idea of their own small gardens. It would be a good way to teach the difficult concepts of waiting and delayed gratification. We turned over a strip of dirt on the south side of the garage and divided it into three sections. After a trip to the local nursery for seed packets and a few plants, they proudly stood in front of their handiwork for photos.

During the weeks to come, my nagging them to weed and water grew old for all of us, but they did have mild success, maybe 30%. As for the other 70%, it was just too hard to labor all summer while waiting for produce.

When it gets hard to wait, especially to see a harvest of spiritual fruit in myself or someone else, it’s helpful to remember God’s description of life’s brevity. Because once I’ve left this world as Nate has done, I don’t want to look back at all I missed and say, “Oh, if I’d only waited!”

“Since the world began, no ear has heard, and no eye has seen a God like you, who works for those who wait for him!” (Isaiah 64:4)

Running On Time

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Margaret

Yesterday I came across a coupon that expired last month. It had been good for a full year and was worth $8.00, but I didn’t know we had it. The title read, “NICTD CONFIRMATION OF A LATE TRAIN.” Google let me know that NICTD stands for Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, and it was clear what had happened.

Nate and I moved from Illinois to Michigan on June 11 of last year. The very next morning he drove to Michigan City, Indiana, and boarded what would become his daily commuter train for Chicago’s Loop. Although the ride was twice the length of his Illinois commute, he didn’t seem to mind. Grateful to have finally sold our Chicago house after four years of trying, the longer travel time to work didn’t bother him. That is, until it got too long.

Although Nate often bragged about the punctual Chicago trains, apparently the NICTD didn’t have the same “track record.” Many late trains coaxed them to put a coupon system in place that offered passengers a pay-back for extreme tardiness. Along the side of the coupon it reads, “60+MINUTES LATE.” Now that’s a woefully overdue train.

The cross-shaped punches in Nate’s coupon indicate he was on board this “at least 60+ minutes late” train on his fourth commuting day, returning to Michigan after work. With his back in severe pain by then and his body suffering from hidden pancreatic cancer, he must have been beyond miserable while the train sat on a track neither here nor there.

I can tell from Nate’s oversized handwriting on the coupon that he was also angry. He did follow instructions, though, to “Please print clearly.” Well, at least the “Please print” part. I don’t know why he never redeemed it for the price of his train ticket. Although $8.00 wasn’t big potatoes, he was probably going after it on principle. When someone contracts to be on time, they should be, and each ticket purchased is a mini-contract.

Nate was always on time. If he was late for anything, it was because I had something to do with it, an aggravation during our early years together. He was right to be punctual, and I was wrong to be late. But as married people learn to do when compromise doesn’t work, one partner gives in. And Nate did. I wish I’d tried harder to pull myself together.

But God was watching, appreciating Nate’s desire to be on time. I say that because God is never late, and we are to emulate him. He usually waits until we think he’s already late, but when he comes through, it’s spectacular. In this, he’s trying to teach us, teach me, it’s important to be punctual.

Those who’ve mastered punctuality on earth have already stockpiled some treasure in heaven. Nate gets double credit for his efforts, because he sacrificed his own desires to put the interests of his wife ahead of his own. But both “early people” and “late people” get some time-related perks in paradise. The “earlies” will never again have to struggle with the “lates”, and the “lates” will always have the time they need.

“I trusted in thee, O Lord. I said, ‘Thou art my God. My times are in thy hand’.” (Psalm 31:14-15a)