Marriage discussion

Bill and Dorothy Went for the Gold!
by Allen Unrau

Bill and Dorothy were married in a 「double wedding」 ceremony in a small church on the Prairies (Canada).

It was late spring and the wind was warm as the two brides stepped from the Ford coupe in the dusty parking lot. The old pump organ played the familiar Wedding March as they were escorted down the aisle to stand beside their handsome young 「husbands to be.」

Both bridegrooms wore formal white sport coats and black bowties for the occasion. Of course the boys were nervous. Neither of them had ever been dressed up this fancy before. What if they made a mistake during their vows and said something dumb? (every man』s secret fear!)

The brides looked so very young and innocent. They were just farm girls in their late teens wearing magnificent white wedding gowns. Their wedding dresses were a 「once in a lifetime」 creation, hand sewn by the best seamstress in their family. They would be cherished and preserved forever.

Did These Four Young People Know What They Were Getting Into?
Did these four young people know what they were getting into? In a few minutes they were going to be responsible for another person for the rest of their lives. Could an eighteen-year-old really understand the responsibility they were accepting?

The minister wore black and spoke slowly but firmly about the commitment they were making. He reminded them that their promises to each other were for life and they believed him. He used phrases like, 「till death do you part」 and they agreed to uphold their vows in front of their family and friends that packed that little wooden church.

Bill and Dorothy had received no marriage counseling before their wedding. Their local library offered no self-help books on establishing meaningful life-long relationships between husbands and wives. How were they every going to make it? What chance did they really have?

Powerful Role Models
They may not have been offered any pre-marriage training, but they did have powerful examples of successful marriages right in their own families. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles…not perfect marriages, but couples that stuck together, honored and respected each other during the good times and also when disaster and disappointment struck.

Agnes Brown (Dorothy』s aunt) recalled some valuable advice that her grandmother had been given on her wedding day back in 1895. She asked if Dorothy would please continue to pass it on to future generations at their weddings. Here』s the marriage tip that had proven effective for decades:

If you want your relationship to last, never go to sleep angry at each other. Promise your spouse that you will resolve things the same day. Always kiss your partner goodnight and you will start the next day with a refreshed commitment to your marriage.

All too soon the wedding celebration was over and it was time to start their new life together. Bill and Dorothy McLaren drove our of the church yard in Uncle Harold』s 』49 Ford that he had graciously donated for their honeymoon trip to Saskatoon. Within five days they were back on Bill』s father』s farm and had settled into the cottage that would be their home for the next few years.

Where are They Now?
Five decades have passed. This spring, Bill and Dorothy』s family organized a 50th anniversary celebration for their mom and dad. The hall was packed with friends and family and the memories were sweet as one after another they got up and paid tribute to this remarkable couple.

They certainly deserved to celebrate! Over the period of 50 years, they have built a legacy that can』t be measured in material possessions but rather by the lives that have been touched through their union.

Everyone in the room recognized their dedication and commitment to each other after all these years and the younger folks were surprised that there was still some fire in their kisses! Jessica, a granddaughter, commented that she hoped she could find a good man like her grandpa C just with a bit more hair. She wants to have a marriage just like theirs. She just doesn』t want to start out with no money, like they did. (Sound familiar?)

Encouraging Words
Tim, their oldest son, finished the evening off with comments that compared their 50 years of marriage to an Olympic event:

「Athletes train all their lives to compete for the Gold. They discipline themselves, they endure, they persevere and they never think of quitting. They know their weaknesses and work endlessly to correct their faults. These athletes are society』s heroes.」

「But who are the real heroes in our society? I believe that folks like you, mom and dad, are even more valuable that Olympic golf medal athletes. As your family, we want to honor you on this day of very special achievement. We are proud of the strength and determination that carried you through the hard years. We are proud of all that you are! The success that I will achieve in my marriage will probably come from watching your example.」

「Consider your golden wedding celebration your gold medal mom and dad! In our opinion, you have 「maximized」 your marriage and many future generations will be blessed because of you.」

Eight Principles for Protecting the Value of Your Marriage and Family
by Bruce and Denise Gordon

I (Bruce) grew up on a farm in Northern Ontario, where the growing season is about two weeks long.

My father knew my mechanical ineptitude and was always very diligent to provide specific rules for operating the machinery. One of them was:

Never push in the clutch of the tractor when you are going downhill with a large load.

Seems Straightforward, Right?
One day I was bringing a load of hay from one barn to another, and of course there was a hill. My friend David was riding on top of the load and as I began to proceed down the hill, I pushed in the clutch. To this day I don』t know what possessed me to do it. I would like to say, 「The devil made me do it,」 but I cannot blame my incompetence on him.

With the clutch in, that tractor took on a new life: it thought it was a Formula One racecar!

I let the clutch out and the gears took over and we started jolting; I punched the clutch back in to smooth the ride and the speed escalated; I let it back out and looked over my shoulder to see David going one way and the load going the other!

I violated a key operating principle and the results could have been disastrous if my friend had fallen down between the tractor and the wagon. (Fortunately, he jumped clear.)

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Anything you Value Must be Protected
It was obvious that Dad valued his equipment - and his son - and this caused him to take precautions.

God places the highest value on marriage and family, but our society today seems to be on a mission to devalue it.

So we want to share with you eight principles for protecting the value of your own marriage and family. These are principles that we have developed over our 32 years of marriage, and if we were to roll back the clock, we would be more careful to follow them from the beginning.

Give Priority to Your Marriage and Family
After creation, the first thing on God』s mind was not education, national government, Israel or even the church, it was the husband/wife relationship. Our priorities should reflect this.

The greatest gift you can give to your children is to love their Dad or Mom. The subtle trap that so easily besets us is that this priority becomes lost amid other pursuits, like work, ministry, children and our own goals and dreams.

In the FamilyLife Marriage Weekends we refer to these issues as 「Extramarital Affairs」 - anything that replaces the priority of the two of you.

Establish Date Nights and Fun Days
One thing Denise』s family knows how to do, being Italian, is to celebrate. Every holiday was an excuse for a family party, from New Year』s Eve to the next Christmas.

In our hectic world, having fun together needs to be a key priority.

Once a month we have a 「Fun Day」 with some close friends. We become tourists for a day. The rule is no business talk, just laughter and browsing. One couple that heard us speak on this asked us, 「What do you talk about?」 They were very serious.

When was the last time you and your spouse went out on a date: a quiet dinner, coffee and dessert, a long walk or a Saturday breakfast?

Put the time aside; it will not happen without planning.

Set and Maintain Boundaries

Boundaries establish margin. Richard Swenson, in his book Margin, defines it this way:

「Margin is having breath left at the top of the staircase, money left at the end of the month and sanity left at the end of adolescence.」

It sounds like a dream come true!

We had a leader say to us recently:

「If you are not standing on the edge, you are taking up too much room!」

This is a sad statement, but it expresses the reality of the world we live in. It also runs directly counter to the protection of the value of your marriage and family.

I focus on two main types of boundaries. One is simply to do my best to consistently live by the principles laid out here. The other is that Denise is number one in my life.

One boundary that is difficult for me in the world of leadership is that I do not want to meet alone with another woman for any reason. I realize this is not always popular or convenient but it is essential to protecting our marriage.

God』s plan is the opposite of the world』s plan. The media screams, 「No boundaries C we want freedom!」

Yet it is only through the setting and maintaining of boundaries that true freedom is realized.

Set Goals Together
We are goal setters. We have always set goals as a family and individually in four areas:

spiritual
recreational
educational
financial
I think we probably drove our three sons crazy with this at times; that being said, to this day, they continue to set goals and we have fun sharing them with each other.

As the saying goes:

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Why not take some time this week to sit down together and set one or two realistic goals that you can begin to work towards as a family?

Yes + No = No
The violation of this principle has caused me no end of pain, frustration and money.

Early in our marriage, a 'yes' from me and a 'no' from Denise just meant, 「Stop, pause and then move ahead anyway!」

Many times she could not give me a specific reason for her feelings, she just said 'no.' It was frustrating, but I have learned the importance of unity in major decisions.

If you reach an impasse, pray about it and if it is still unresolved, seek counsel from a trusted third party. But always remember: you are on the same team!

Be Purposeful in Resolving Conflict
We get angry when we feel that our rights have been violated, our expectations have not been met or our mate has hurt us in some way.

When this happens, we typically respond in one of two ways: we stuff it (internalize it) or blow it (externalize it).

However we react, unresolved conflict leads to isolation from each other.

Walls are built, brick by brick, passively or aggressively.

We have a choice between bitterness and tension on the one hand and forgiveness and freedom on the other.

Resolving conflict requires forgiveness.

Forgiveness is not pretending that something did not happen or that it did not hurt. It is not an automatic cure for the heart because sin has consequences that linger.

Forgiveness is not a natural human response, but neither is it impossible, for 「I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.」

Forgiveness is a choice to set the other party free from the debt or offense that they have committed against you. It is an attitude of letting go of resentment and my right to get even, and it』s an action that must be expressed by word and deed. Above all, forgiveness is an act of obedience to a command. Jesus tells us to forgive each other as He forgave us and He gives us the strength to do it.

As Corrie Ten Boom said, 「Forgiveness is setting the prisoner free, only to find out that the prisoner was me.」

Pray Together
Consider these statistics: One of two marriages ends in divorce. One out of three marriages that begin in a church ends in divorce. One of five couples that receive pre-marital counseling and are married in a church end up divorced. Yet only one out of 1250 marriages between couples that regularly pray together ends in divorce.

It』s an amazing statistic and yet for many couples it is so difficult.

To pray with your spouse puts you in a very vulnerable position.

On the other hand, this is where the potential for the deepest level of intimacy is found.

Denise and I have begun to practice this in the past ten years. We don』t always pray daily together but we do make this a priority a couple of times a week, especially for key issues.

It has been transforming in our relationship.

Develop Your Relationship with God
This is the greatest challenge of all: to find time to spend with God.

When is the right time, anyway?

Only you can decide for we are all different and at different stages of our lives.

But whatever you do, find a regular time and place and book God into your Palm Pilot.

Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones tells a story when one day he was driving to his church in his Model T Ford and it broke down. Dr. Jones had about as much mechanical aptitude as I do and, being late for an appointment, he was beside himself. He lifted the hood, but he didn』t know where to start. People were passing by, but no one stopped. Finally, one couple approached him and asked, 「What is the trouble?」 He responded, 「I do not know, it doesn』t work.」

「Do you want me to take a look?」 the other man asked him.

「Absolutely!」 he replied.

The man looked briefly, touched a wire, turned a lever and then said, 「Give it a try.」

Dr. Jones gave it one crank and it immediately started. 「Thank you so much,」 he said. 「My name is Martin Lloyd Jones.」

The man smiled and said, 「Good to meet you. My name is Henry Ford.」

This is a true story, and it demonstrates what happens when we place ourselves in the hands of the Creator.

He designed you and your spouse, and He came up with the idea of marriage in the first place. Only by giving your relationship back to Him will it become all that He intended it to be.

Widow Chooses Exciting Life
by Muriel Larson





What does a woman do after her mate of many years dies?

Most women remain settled among their friends and loved ones. But former park commissioner Margaret Coles decided to make her life count by serving others less fortunate with her special skills and experience as a medical technician.

"The Lord had done so much for me," Margaret Coles says, "that about a year after my husband died I wanted to serve Him in some special way that would utilize my skills to show His love to other people.

Then I was invited by the Christian Medical Society to go on a two-week medical mission tour to Honduras. They urgently needed a technologist who could set up laboratories without the help of a computer. Few technologists today can do that, but because I had been in that field for so long, I could."

Roughing it in Honduras
Carrying their equipment and supplies, 140 medical personnel divided into teams that set out early in the morning for various remote Indian villages. "We traveled by narrow-gauge railroad, plane, truck, donkey cart and dugout canoe," Margaret says. "We sent word ahead that we were coming and usually would find several hundred people awaiting us, for they had no doctors, dentists or clinics."

Margaret ran tests and helped the doctors diagnose ailments. "Everyone worked elbow to elbow in the one building we might find available," she says, "except for the dentists, who set-up shop under a palm tree. The frustrating part of the work was the sheer numbers who came seeking help. Sometimes we had up to 500 a day. They started lining up at two a.m. The eye team, for instance, daily fitted nearly 300 persons with glasses and performed up to 19 eye surgeries. We often worked until ten at night, using kerosene lanterns and flashlights."

Christian Love Wins Souls to Christ
In spite of their heavy work load, the medical team fulfilled their primary goal of sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with their patients.

"We saw many receive Christ as their Savior," Margaret says. "But those people are very suspicious of Americans, and first you must prove your love and compassion for them by binding their wounds. Then they will listen."

The medical team found an abandoned clinic with lab equipment in one village. "Wouldn't it be good if we could return here with the necessary parts and repair this clinic?" Margaret exclaimed to her co-workers. They agreed.

On her return to the States, Margaret obtained the parts, tools and manuals necessary to repair the equipment in that laboratory. Then she and three others returned to Honduras in December.

"During the three months I was there," she says, "I not only repaired the laboratory, but I trained three national girls to use the equipment. A Moravian missionary doctor who had served there several years before is now back using that lab with the help of those three girls."

Margaret also found many opportunities this time to witness for Christ. "eople came for miles around to get medical help," she says, "and I was able to lead a number of them to the Lord."

The Indians thought the medical missionaries were superhuman, but Margaret assured them that she was only human like them. "If you will put your trust in the Lord," she told them, "He will help you just as He does me. He will always be with you as He is with me.

Mission Work Expanded
The medical technician made trips with CMS teams to the Dominican Republic and Honduras during the several years that followed.

"On these trips we bought soap, baby blankets and other things to give the people," she says. "I brought up to 13 cartons of soap. With each bar goes a gospel tract in Spanish.

One day two women walked a six-hour round trip just to get a bar. So for the cost of one bar of soap, each they were reached with the message of salvation."

The following year Margaret sailed with a group called Project Partners with Christ on a Christian medical ship bound for Guatemala. She set up a laboratory on the "Sea Angel" and trained two nurses in its use.

During a tour of the villages around a large inland lake in Guatemala, Margaret assayed what needed to be done to restore or set up laboratories for clinics in various places. Although what she did was not directly involved in bringing the gospel, it made it possible for medical missionaries to reach many for Christ in the areas serviced by those clinics.

In between making such short-term mission trips to Central America at her own expense, the dedicated technician has worked with the Voice of Calvary Ministries, founded by John Perkins, setting up a laboratory and clinics to help black people in Mississippi. A Christ-centered organization, it seeks not only to help the people physically and materially, but also to bring them to the Lord.

All-Around Woman
Margaret Coles came to know Christ as her Savior at a summer camp when she was 17. She and her husband operated a medical laboratory in Iowa during their 28 years of marriage. An avid airplane pilot and tennis player, she has served as a park commissioner and state board member of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs.

"I knew many women my age who had lost their husbands," Margaret says, "and I just decided I was not going to be a typical widow who felt that life was over. As long at the Lord opens doors, I'II go through them!"


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Age is No Reason to Quit!
by Muriel Larson





Some ladies in their eighties like to keep their age a secret.

Sprightly Bernice Cresswell of Greenville, SC was one who didn't.

In fact, every Mother's Day in recent years she went forward at her church, Oak Crest Baptist, to receive the orchid for oldest mother in the church.

Bernice was also one of those stalwart Christians who hasn't thrown in the towel on Christian service because of her age.

She continued teaching Sunday School and singing in the church choir and she also used her considerable musical ability to God's glory. In fact, she served as an assistant pianist at church and held weekly concerts and religious meetings at a nursing home.

"I try to play the old songs," said Bernice, whose musical preferences on the piano ran towards classical and religious pieces. "Those are what the folks in rest homes love the most - like Amazing Grace, What a Friend, In the Garden and When We All Get to Heaven.

Bernice Meets Thad
Bernice had started playing the piano at rest homes some years before. Thus using her musical ability opened the way for her to have a personal ministry talking to various individuals about the Lord. One elderly black man, Thad, bitterly said, "Don't talk to me about the Lord. I've been badly treated in my life. I didn't deserve that!"

Bernice opened her Bible. "Well, Thad, I'm sure you know a lot of people have been treated unfairly. But God doesn't approve of that! God really loves you, Thad. He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for you - for your sins - so that you might go to heaven some day. Why not let me show you this from His Word?"

Thad grunted and Bernice went through God's plan of salvation, Romans 3:23, 6:23; 5:8, 10:9-10, l3, and explained it.

"You see, Thad, we all have sinned and come short of God's glory. But God showed His great love for us by sending His beloved Son Jesus to pay the price for our sins. The wages of sin is death and God's gift to us is eternal life. To receive a gift, you have to take it, don't you?"

"Yes, ma'am," Thad agreed, staring at her.

"The Bible says that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  Now who do you think 'whosoever' means?"

"Well, anybody, I guess. Does it mean me, too?"

"It certainly does! You can call on Jesus right now to save you, Thad, and He will. And He will give you His wonderful peace and joy, too!" After explaining further, Bernice invited Thad to pray with her to receive Jesus Christ as his Saviour. He humbly bowed his head and followed her in prayer.

"There was a big change in Thad after that," Bernice told me. "He was a new man! Gone was the bitterness, the angry expression on his face. At last Thad knew peace in his heart. I still visit with Thad every week and we talk about the Lord together."

Beauty Contest
One attractive white woman at the nursing home who had a stroke couldn't talk much. But whenever they held a beauty contest at the home, this lady won hands down. Her favorite song was, Precious Lord, Take My Hand. When she couldn't come to the meeting, Bernice visited her in her room to read the Bible to her and have prayer with her. In fact, Bernice often visited those who, for one reason or another, couldn't attend the meetings. The social workers at the home appreciated the group's coming each week. "You really bring these people out," one said to Bernice. "Ordinarily some of them never participate in anything, but when you come they seem to join right in and come to more normality." This was especially true of those whose minds had been disoriented by Alzheimer's disease. "Even though they may not be able to hold a conversation," Bernice said, "they join right in and sing all the words of the old hymns. It comes back to them!"

After the meeting with singing, special music and a short devotional, refreshments were served during which time the group could fellowship with the various patients.

Never Too Old to Serve!
Bernice Cresswell took piano and violin lessons and played in an orchestra while attending Due West Women's College (now Erskine) some years ago. After graduation and marriage, she served as church organist at several churches in the Greenville area. Besides being a wife and mother of two children, Bernice also taught first through fourth-graders for several years at Mountain Missionary School, a Baptist school that once operated in her area. At one time she also worked with the bus ministry of a large church she attended, visiting in homes to spread the gospel and offer residents free rides to church and Sunday School. But always her first love in service was her music.

"Looking back," she said, "my real love for music, singing with different groups, playing piano and organ - using the talent God gave me in this field - has been a genuine pleasure for me!"

Even though Bernice Cresswell had a touch of arthritis, she kept right on playing for the Lord.

"There is joy in serving Jesus," she said. "Why should I give up that joy just because of a few aches and pains? As long as I can move my fingers, I'll go right on serving Him on the piano and as His witness!"

Bernice did just that. Not long after she shared her story with me, she became ill. Several days later, at the age of 87, Bernice went home to be with her Lord where I have no doubt she has already joined the heavenly choir - and maybe even has a harp to play on!

Note:  When I was church organist at Oak Crest, I played with Bernice on the piano from time to time. She always struck me as a very special person! - Muriel Larson


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