The Marrying Kind, Part II

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With sparkle on my left hand and a fiancée I loved, all was right with the world. That is, until I walked into Mom and Dad’s house, leading with my ring finger.

Of course they knew about Nate. They’d met him two years earlier when we were still in college, and they liked him. He was a serious young man who looked up to his elders, deferring to them in conversation and displaying impeccable manners. They knew he was in the military with plans to be a lawyer, which sounded responsible. He was even Swedish.

So what was the problem? When I came in that day rejoicing over my new engagement status, they were completely taken by surprise. I learned later that Nate had actually had a conversation with Dad about one day marrying me, asking if that would be OK. Dad had assented but must have interpreted the conversation as meaning one-distant-day.”

Although I’d quizzed Dad about how to choose a good mate, he had no idea how close we were to making that decision. I’d been living away from home and teaching school in Chicago, and Dad hadn’t watched our relationship heat up.

Now that we were engaged, questions flooded their minds, and Dad’s brow furrowed. I was frustrated with their less than enthusiastic response to my news, and of course Nate was far, far away, learning to crawl under rifle fire.

Finally Mom said, “Well, we’ll just look forward to getting to know Nate much better during your year of engagement.”

“What year?” I said. “We want to get married by September.”

“What?” Mom said, and now her brow was furrowed, too. “We could never pull a wedding together by then!”

Dad suggested we wait until after Nate graduated from law school two years hence. “What’s wrong with taking your time?” he said.

“I can find a teaching job near the law school, and everything will work out. We’re tired of the long-distance thing.”

Mom’s chocolate chip cookies and tea helped nurture negotiations along, and after a well-timed phone call from Ft. Riley, my parents were feeling better. Nate had told his own folks about our plans, and they had no objection. They did, however, make it clear they wouldn’t be contributing to our day-to-day support, if we rushed into marriage before graduation.

Deciding to marry is serious business. Marriage is God’s idea, and he wants people to choose mates wisely. His desire is that every marriage stick, one man for one woman for life. Our parents’ concern was based on their love for us and the hope we were choosing well. Both couples, married nearly 30 years then, thought we were rushing.

But Nate fixed everything. He came up with a plan that would smooth things over and ease Mom and Dad’s nervousness. It would also answer some of the prickly questions nagging at them.
I was sure it would bring us all together quickly.

(Tomorrow: The Marrying Kind, Part III.)

”Appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction… Esteem them very highly in love. Live in peace with one another.” (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13, parts)

The Marrying Kind, Part I

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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

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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)