My Home Companion

LOOKING FOR MRS. RIGHT

MRS. RIGHT

Thirty-eight years. Not quite forty, but still, thirty-eight years is a long time when you try and remember what happened on some specific date and time.

Thirty-eight years might seem like an eternity to a person who has some debilitating disease or it might seem faster than the free fall at one of the loopty-loop roller coasters to a man married to a woman who has made his life like a piece of heaven on earth.



Thirty-nine years ago I was going to a Presbyterian church in Pompano, FL, and on one Sunday morning a new girl walked into our Sunday school class. After that class I was talking to my friend, Rich, who knew who she was and said, "That's going to be my wife." About ten months later I was at the altar of the Presbyterian church and, indeed, she became my wife.

A PREVIEW OF WHAT WAS COMING

There were some monumental challenges that had to be overcome. First and foremost, that girl was only 15-years old and I was twenty-two. Wow, seven years in those days was truly like an eternity. But she looked much older than that so I refused to believe it at first. So I met her parents and in some insanely, unexplainable way, they liked me--in fact, her dad even talked to me and that was abnormal, according to the 15-year old.



In just a short span of a couple of months, we both realized that something was going on between us and that it was more than just taking her to the Bible studies at church or Mark and Marcia's. Before long ("long" being a relative term remember) we realized we wanted to be married to one another.

ON A COLLISION COURSE. ME, 20ish, AND HER, ON THE HORSE, ABOUT 13.

Mustering up the courage to speak to her folks, we kind of dropped hints here and there and over time they realized we were serious. That wasn't a problem for them but, of course, Jackie was in high school and had to graduate first, so said her parents. Bummer. That was two years away.

Have you ever been thankful for racial riots? In the early 70s there was a lot of tension at the high schools. South Florida is part of the South and the way the blacks were treated reflected the racial prejudices most of us were raised with. True, Jackie (by the way, if you hadn't guessed, that's the cute little 15-year-old) and I were Christians and had jettisoned that kind of thinking, but we were also white.

BEFORE LEAH AND NATHAN, THERE WAS US...

Being 5-feet tall and weighing in at 85 pounds, Jackie was a target at high school and one day found herself being punched out by a much larger black girl. That was life in high school during the racially-charged 70s. When Jackie got home that day her mom took one look and said, "You are done with high school. Marry Bob." See why I was thankful for racial problems!

We thought, "Wow, I can't believe we are getting married." There was, of course, her dad to deal with. What mom said was powerful, what dad said was his challenge. "You can marry Jackie as soon as you buy her a house." He told us he was not going to have some dead-beat son-in-law moving into his house and mooching his money. Inwardly, I was laughing because I knew something he didn't know. I had money saved up--I had worked at my dad's tire store and was living at home so I just put my money in a drawer and saved it. I didn't even know why I had so much money but I did. Then again, in the 70s you could buy a house for $17,000. And that's what we did. We looked at a few houses and found an old farm house that had been moved to town and I plopped down the down payment and a few months later we were married.

THEN THERE WAS LEAH...

That was, if you can't guess, thirty-eight years ago, or will be in about a week. We start our 38th year of marriage with our faith firmly in Christ Jesus our Lord and King, grateful for every circumstance that surrounds us, convinced that we are in God's care and all that comes into our lives comes as a gift from Him.




THEN THERE WAS NATHAN

I'm unemployed once again while Jackie continues to work at the Baptist pre-school/day care, living in St. Augustine and, as always, wondering what it is God will have us doing for the Kingdom of His dear Son. We are content where we are and available to go anywhere on earth.

It is such a marvelous blessing to be married to one who is going in the same direction, loving the same God and Father and who, incredibly, puts up with a husband who'd just as soon go surfing as to go and look for another job. I truly hope each of you who reads this has the same kind of blessing in marriage as we have in ours.

AND THERE'S WHERE WE ARE TODAY...

Bob and Jackie