I wish for you what I have experienced, a Golden Wedding Anniversary.
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #164 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.
Aug. 8, 1974, President Richard M. Nixon shocked the world when he announced he would resign the presidency the next day at Noon. Aug. 9, 1974, Vice President Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as president. Aug. 10, 1974, Sarah and I got married.
Quite a weekend, don’t you think? At least it was quite a weekend for a young guy interested in politics and even more interested in a certain young lady.
Sarah and I recently celebrated our 50th or Golden Wedding Anniversary. As I am sure many who’ve gone before me have noted, it’s hard to believe this much time has passed.
It all started when I arrived at Cedarville University as a almost 18 but still 17-year-old freshman. During freshman orientation week, I looked across a big bonfire at a girl giving her testimony and immediately thought, who is that? I was fortunate to meet her later that evening, but she started dating my roommate. That didn’t last long, and we began talking by phone after curfew hours, long conversations about virtually everything. This went on for months over the rest of freshman year.
Then in the fall, beginning of sophomore year, somehow, I had gotten tickets to The Carpenter’s Concert at University of Dayton Arena. Fortunately, my date for the evening cancelled, and I called Sarah saying, “Wanna go see The Carpenters?” Being the music lover she was, she jumped at this, and Nov 10, 1971, became our first date. I can remember what Sarah wore that night, but I cannot remember what Karen Carpenter wore. It was a great evening and the beginning of the next so-far 50+ years.
I think back to our dating days in college and then getting married a couple of months after graduation. We thought we were in love, and we were, but from the perspective of 50 years later there is no comparison. Now our love is based not just upon attraction and feelings but upon life experience.
When we were blessed with our first child, a “Bicentennial Baby” as they were called back then, born in January 1976, we selected a family verse. That verse still resonates with us. It is Ps 126:3, which we learned and later had embroidered for a wall hanging in the old King James Version language. “The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.”
Indeed, the Lord had done great things for us, and we see it now more even than back then. Not only a daughter, but later God gave us three boys. The first two were one and one-half years apart, then an almost four-year gap, and two more about one and one-half years apart. So, I’d come home from work and say, “Where’s the kids,” meaning the older two, followed by “Where’s the little boys,” meaning the forever younger two. Kids and little boys, that was our family.
When we were married, I knew a few things, of course, about Sarah, but I did not know, for example, that the Lord had given her what the Scripture calls the gift of hospitality. I did not see that emerge until later, for Sarah is not only an excellent cook, more than that, she is incredibly gracious, giving, caring, and conscientious about meeting other people’s needs and interests, i.e., the gift of hospitality. I’ve seen this gift demonstrated scores of times over early on with our young family, later with university students, faculty and staff, and supporters, later still with people involved in other ministries and in our church. She is an amazing host.
I did not know that Sarah would develop a capacity to lead groups, in the U.S. to visit key sites, overseas on mission trips, or in service via our local church. Interestingly, leadership is not something she’s ever sought. In fact, truth be told she’d just as soon be part of the group. But I’ve seen this time and again and pointed this out to her, people, especially ladies, gravitate to her kind and joyful personality, and to her capacity to figure out what needs done and make decisions to get there – something, to be frank about it, not everyone can do.
I saw this when we dated, but I learned far more later about the depth and strength of her faith. Stronger than mine. She came to Christ at the age of 4 years when her older sister Rosemary shared the Gospel with her and with their dog Shep. I don’t know if Shep will be in heaven, but I know Sarah is one who has never doubted her salvation and lives out her faith in a manner rooted in the rock-solid understanding of just who the Sovereign God is.
Now me, on the other hand, as I’ve shared before, I came to Christ via my mother’s witness when I was 6 years of age. But I have a rational bent of mind, and at times in my younger days I kept trying to figure things out or kept thinking there’s got to be more. And I doubted. I never doubted the existence of God, but I did doubt whether I was truly saved once and for all.
I later read Os Guinness’s masterful book, Doubt, Faith in Two Minds (1983), later expanded as God in the Dark: The Assurance of Faith Beyond a Shadow of Doubt (1996). In this book I was helped mightily by Guinness’s analysis indicating that to doubt is to be undecided. It is not rejection of the Lord as such. In 2 Tim. 2:12, Scripture says, “If we deny him, he also will deny us,” meaning if we reject the Lord Jesus Christ, then we have no other hope. In 2 Tim. 2:13, the Scripture continues saying, “If we are faithless, he remains faithful,” meaning if we lack faith, i.e., we doubt, we are of two minds, yet the Lord remains faithful because our salvation does not depend upon our or my weak spirit but upon the Sovereign Lord God of heaven.
I have read Guinness’s book on doubt more than once and will likely read it again. And I’ve been blessed with occasions along the way in which I could speak to students and others, sharing Dr. Guinness’s insights as well as relating my experience with doubt and faith.
But as I said, this is my journey, not Sarah’s. Her faith is remarkable.
And this is one of the things the Lord meant when in the Garden of Eden, God looked at Adam and said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Gen 2:18). The Lord created women to help keep men out of trouble. The Lord created women, and then marriage, to provide a context in which men could be men, using their energies and invest their talents in caring for their families, and flourish. And the Lord provided a context for women to be women, using their capacity for love and caring, and to invest their talents in nurturing their families and flourish. Sarah and I have been enormously blessed to live in this context for the past fifty years.
More reflections. When we were dating, we talked about having five kids. Then when we started a family, after three, we thought, OK, maybe that’s it. But God planned four. And of course, as our family verse said, “Whereof, we are glad.”
We also talked about my aspirations to teach in higher education, which if realized would require more than an undergrad degree. So, going after a master’s and then a doctorate virtually defined the first eight years of our marriage. I used to say, “We had two kids, then we had a doctorate, then two more kids,” and that got laughs in academic circles where others had similar experiences. But that’s how it worked.
With that, we also changed jobs or positions. Christian school in Cleveland. Christian school in Cross Lanes, WV. Professor at Cedarville University in Ohio, Vice President of Academic Affairs or academic dean The King’s College in Briarcliff Manor, NY, President at what became Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, MI.
What I am saying is, we moved. We lived in Ohio, West Virginia, New York, and finally Michigan. Never once in all this did Sarah look at me and say, no, or I can’t do this, or we should not do this. Hard though it was to leave friends, lodging, and churches behind, she supported what we thought was God’s leading in our lives to pursue a calling in Christian higher education. And God blessed abundantly.
So, 50 years is an occasion for remembrance and celebration, but also a time to honor the Lord for what he has done. I do not deserve the wonderful wife with whom God blessed me.
Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com.
And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.
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