I swear we were just friends when we went to dinner at Orleans Pasta House that evening.
Ashley Hurst and I were just friends, attending the Impact class at Northwest Bible together. This massive class of about 450 young singles met in smaller groups. Ashley and I ran in the same crowd and enjoyed talking with each other. We were both Baylor alumni, and she had dated one of my close friends.
So, on that night in May, shortly before Memorial Day, we were just a couple of friends, catching up, having dinner. Until we weren’t.
I’ll remember that moment for the rest of my life. I can’t remember what I said. I know it was a stupid joke, because I’m pretty sure all my jokes back then were stupid. She tilted her head back and laughed, that laugh that even then I thought was cute, the laugh that has captivated me ever since…
God flipped a switch in that second, and the light came on. In that split second, it was as obvious to me as that Margaret was my mom, John was my dad, and Susan was my sister: Ashley would be my wife. Besides the moment I decided to follow Jesus, nothing has ever been more certain for me; God has never moved my heart so clearly.
The crazy thing is, He did the same thing to her at that same dinner. Unbelievable. We stayed up until 2 am that night, just talking. As soon as she went home, I called my mom, waking her up. “Mom, you have to meet this girl,” I said, “I’m going to marry her.”
Our first date was just before Memorial Day. On August 15th, when I asked her to marry me (she said “yes”), I gave her the confirmation from Perkins Chapel on the SMU campus that I had reserved the chapel…in the first week of June.
When you know, you know.
This past Wednesday, the woman who took the plunge with me 31 years ago and I celebrated our wedding anniversary. I pray you’ll indulge me this week as I share several things I admire about her. I hope that as I share, those of you who have been married for years will recognize everyday things you appreciate about your spouse, and that those recently married will be inspired by the great work God is currently doing through you.
My wife anchors me. On first blush, that may sound like a bad thing, but it is truly the greatest of things. I run pretty hot, with a high motor. I think some of it is the way God made me, and some of it is a personality flaw that He’s perfecting, but my adult life and career have been about doing many, many things: serving on boards, lots of traveling, life on the road.
I’m also a passionate guy with a strong personality. That means I have lots of thoughts and opinions, and over the years, God has revealed to me that they don’t all need to be shared. I don’t need to be the Holy Spirit in other people’s lives; if you read my blog last week, you know the Spirit does a pretty good job of being the Holy Spirit on his own, without my help.
My wife has a calming personality, whereas I have mood swings. She is introverted, where I’m extroverted, a “let’s stay in” gal, where I’m a “go, go, go” guy. There might have been a time when these differences irritated me. These, and several others, may have looked to me like “incompatibility.” Now I realize that God gave me her personality to save me. In my ADHD-riddled world, she provides a calm, stable home for our girls and me (which, I recently learned, studies show is the type of home environment people with a brain like mine need-which just shows she was ahead of her time).
God is so gracious to work through our differences. As we remain patient and grow in grace for one another, we have developed an appreciation and a gratefulness that complement each other. At this point in our lives, I’ve formed a healthy dependency on her, like a teammate. She and our girls recently went on a trip for a whole week, and I realized I wasn’t doing well while she was gone. I told her that if she were away any longer in the future, I would probably perish in a house fire. While I know God would provide what I need to live without her, life is much better and sweeter with her in it.
My wife is the glue that holds our family together. I may lead it with vision and intentionality, but when our girls have a problem, a concern, or just need to share how they’re feeling, they go to her. Sometimes I’ll walk into the house and see my wife sitting there. I can tell someone is on the phone with her because I hear them breathing, but no one is talking. When I ask about this, she tells me it’s one of my daughters on the line. Not talking.
I don’t understand this at all. Usually, I’ll say something very logical and sensitive like, “Why don’t you hang up and call back when you actually have something to say?” Which, of course, is not the point. The point is that they are together. My daughter and her mom are just cooking dinner together, or keeping one another company on the drive home from work. Providing comfort through presence, even two hours away.
I love that my girls desire that from their mother and that they understand that type of relational community. When I speak to them about solitude and silence with the Lord, how important it is, and how the Lord often does his best transformational work with them during those times, they get it. They enjoy it from their mother, so they can enjoy it from their Father.
My wife is a role model to our girls. It wasn’t easy when they were teenagers. If you’re having a tough time with your own right now, I understand. I remember difficult nights with my girls and their mom when I had to step in. My wife called having teenage girls “a constant assault on your self-esteem.” If that’s not you, count yourself blessed. If it is, be encouraged. There’s nothing more uplifting than hearing my girls talk about their mother–the way they respect her as a follower of Jesus, as a mom, as a businesswoman.
This is a testimony to the faithfulness of God in hard parenting. Even as you press into your kids, persevere faithfully and prayerfully. Do the hard things. Don’t be too quick to be their friend when being their parent is what’s needed. Be kind and loving and always ensure they know you’re for them, but be firm and even tough when you must be. God will carry you by his grace, and your children are way more likely to honor and praise you for it later than if you give in to their childish desires.
Lastly, God has used my wife to help transform me into the best version of myself. No one is for me like she is. No one prays for me like she does. No one encourages me like she does, and no one speaks truth into my life like she does, even when it’s really painful to hear.
One of the best pieces of marriage advice I ever received was that “the purpose of marriage isn’t primarily for your happiness, but for your holiness.” Another way of saying that is that God places your spouse, as the most important earthly relationship in your life, into your life in part to refine you, to shape you and form you into a better person, into all he wants you to be.
That may not sound like much fun. I mean, who really wants to be “refined”? It sounds heated and painful. And it is. But the beautiful paradox in all of that is this: when we yield to the Lord and what he’s doing in our lives, and we surrender to and serve each other, then God, who gave us each other, actually makes us into two people who love each other, enjoy each other, and are better together than we are alone. That’s pretty wonderful, as the late Tim Keller called “The Meaning of Marriage”– to reflect God and his nature in community as the Trinity and reflect Christ and his Church while we love and enjoy each other.
People often say their kids are the greatest gift God has ever given them, but I have to respectfully disagree. While my girls are amazing and among the top four, the woman who bore them, comforted them, shared wisdom with them, nursed them when they were sick, and built a home for them and for me? She’s my number one.
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