How I met your mother. I had returned home “like a bad penny,” as the expression goes, but perhaps taking baby steps away from some of my stubborn bad habits and insatiable ego. After 7 years away from home (4 years of college, summers spent working camps around the Southeast, a half a year at the World’s Fair, another half at the Omni Hotel, and 2 years in the Student Affairs office at Georgia Tech), I boomeranged back to my parents home (lucky them) in Knoxville to get a Masters Degree in Communications at UT. Because my undergrad was in Sociology, the Communications Department Head said I would need some leveling classes in the communications department. That’s when I saw her. She had big 80’s strawberry blonde hair, beautiful big blue eyes that took your breath away and captured your heart, a cute little nose, and she gained some adorable freckles when she was kissed by the sun... AND she was usually with her best friend ... and when I say usually, I mean ALWAYS. These two coeds were attractive and effervescent “TV news aficionados,” who took every college class together. They were inseparable and talked incessantly. The University’s News Radio staff did their best to send the two of us out to get stories together, but there never seemed to be a good time to talk to her outside of feeding the news machine for ALL NEWS 850. The station was always hungry for stories twice an hour, all day, everyday. Finally, I saw my opportunity. I was sitting near the front of the class on the same row as my blonde news fox and her friend, not to be mistaken with Fox News and Friends, which would not be invented for several years. The lecture finished and I waited in my seat for these two ladies to stroll down the aisle. At a strategic moment, I stood up and slid between them. Anita, unaware that I was behind her, kept walking and talking. Without turning around she asked Amy if she were going to the movie that night (they were taking an elective class that included watching and evaluating classic movies). I said, “I thought you’d never ask!” to which Anita turned around, frowned, and said, “I’m not talking to you,” and continued her conversa- tion with Amy. But then, we were assigned by the Station Manager to go report on a story together, on the topic of “Communication in Marriage,” so I offered to drive us to the conference. Afterward, it happened to be about dinner time and we were near one of my favorite restaurants (Grady's of Regas Family fame), so I said, “are you hungry, I love this restaurant and I’m buying?” To which she said, “yes.” I was impressed with not only how much we had in common as we discussed our typical southern upbringing (both the good parts and dysfunction), shared family values, and faith roots, but also that she didn’t hesitate in asking me if I were going to eat the rest of my shoestring fries after she had already finished hers. I said I was happy to share mine, and she ate them all! (to her credit, the shoestring fries from this place were warm, golden, crispy, strips of potato deliciousness... the best in the world). That was it! I was in love! She was, as the school fight song “Rocky Top” says, “wild as a mink but sweet as soda pop.” However, I guess the stars in my eyes had prevented me from seeing the fraternity lavalier she was wearing. All I could do was wait and hope that this long distance relationship would eventually end as it did with many a “hometown honey” at a faraway school. Needless to say, that relationship ended and we began dating.
Our relationship was as intense as it was fast. We jumped in with both feet. I met her folks and she met mine. It wasn’t long until we were engaged. Perhaps it was too quick, because we ended up breaking our engagement. The breakup was painful, effusive and intense. We both landed in counseling separately, but with the same Christian counselor. This was maybe one of the best things that could have happened to us individually and as a couple to work through some of our “stuff.” I decided to finally quit running from God, accept my calling into ministry, and determined that I would go to seminary when I finished my masters degree. We didn’t talk with each other for weeks. With so much pain, I was sure the relationship was over. The counselor must have seen how deeply we still cared for each other in spite of the ways we had hurt each other, so he carefully suggested we meet with him together with some ground rules in place. I wasn’t sure, but with some trepidation, I agreed. As my son’s father-in-law would years later tell him, “A faint-hearted man never won a fair lady.” Our counselor helped us set up some healthy boundaries, so that the relationship would be given a fighting chance to make it this time. God worked in our hearts and the wedding was back on. We married, I finished my degree and we headed to Seminary in Texas. Thirty-two years, 4 kids, 1 grandkid, 7 cities, and 7 churches later, God has taught us that we are better together, the 3 of us, with Him at the center. The years still include some intense joy and effusive disagreements, and we are also still learning how to love each other well.
As one funny but truthful older and wiser friend said of her fifty year marriage, “we had 45 good years.” She says, “it wasn’t 5 bad years in a row, it was a day here, a week there, ten days back there, over the lifetime of the marriage.” “But overall,”she says, “it's a good relationship and I wouldn’t want anyone else.”
As the Divinely inspired writer of Proverbs says, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains
favor from the LORD.” (Proverbs 18:22 ESV)
