Yes, there was that little 32-year delay – but eventually it happened, or will happen very soon. My wife was up until after 2AM last night writing a paper and preparing a presentation for her last day of class, which is today. She’s been involved in a two-week intensive class, studying the holocaust. Each night she’s been reading history and writing about it. Sometimes we’ve had conversations about it, and at times her content has intersected my world as I’ve been bringing a teaching series on the Sermon on the Mount to completion. These teachings of Jesus challenge the pretense of religion and the use of “god words” to justify injustice, attitudes which were present in the Germany of the ’30s and led to their eventually collapse under the weight of a mad man. Barth’s Romans and Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship are both written to call people back to robust faith, a cry which is needed in our time as well. But I digress….
The 32-year delay happened because this was the woman I wanted to marry, and so I asked her and she said yes, even though yes meant moving to a different state before graduating. Then she invested her time in other things, like financing my grad school, giving birth to three amazing children, raising them, functioning as principal and head teacher as she home-schooled them. When we moved to the city, she continued by working in Seattle as a means of funding their education all the way through the completion of their college careers, while being a pastor’s wife and the co-director (with me) of wilderness retreat center along the way. By December, though, she’ll have completed her degree requirements, and will, next June, graduate right alongside our youngest daughter. That’s a graduation I won’t want to miss. Believe me: I’m not only proud of her, but humbled by her enormous investment in our life together.
If you’ve watched It’s a Wonderful Life or Mr. Holland’s Opus; if you’ve read your Bible and looked at the lives of Joseph, or Moses, or David, or Paul; if you’re over 45 years old, you know this: Some dreams are put on hold. There are at least two reasons for this: [Read more...]
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