Were You There

Life Happens in Decades

Life happens in decades.  I have taught it for years.  I did not invent the concept, 

but I have lived long enough to recognize its truth.

This week, my wife and I celebrate our 

20^th wedding anniversary. 

This milestone has proven to be a great place to pause and reflect on the life that we have shared.  I have spent a great deal of time contemplating all that our life has enjoyed and endured.  Such contemplation has served to under-gird the thought that life is full of blessing – even in the midst of trial.

I think about the start of our life together, and the obstacles that we faced.  

 In the beginning, there were some in our lives who loved us very much, who were determined that should we marry, our marriage would be full of trouble and that it would most likely meet with drastic and disastrous conclusion.  The nay-sayers, while few, were often the loudest sound in the room.  It was often very difficult to think or reason beyond the opposition that ensued.  Yet, we did.  Both of us were determined in our heart that our marriage was not simply something that we desired, but something that God was orchestrating.  

 There was a plan for each of us, but more importantly, there was a plan or both of us together… 

and it would take the two of us being one to fulfill that purpose. 

In entering that marriage, we considered what we would accomplish in ten years.  

Then, we did it.  We married and like any marriage, found that not everything was easy.  In fact, marriage is hard…particularly when you are determined to do more than survive.

A lot happened in that first decade.  We learned early on that we had to be (meaning, “I” had to be) extremely careful in our spending…to live within our means.  That lesson allowed us to create forward momentum in caring for our family, and our home.   

Patience was a requirement.   

You cannot have everything you want, and certainly right now.  But contentment taught us what we really wanted rather than what we thought we wanted.

In the first decade, we were blessed with four children.  Yep, Cindy was a baby factory.  Those early childhood years seemed as though they would never end.  Nights were sometimes endless.  The money thing took on a whole new dynamic.  The romance of being together took on a new flavor.  The time for Cindy and I to share together began to require invention and great creativity.  Living within your means with four small children meant they were always within arms reach.  The house wasn’t that big.

In that first decade, we became very solid about the work God placed into our hands.  We did not go the traditional route of schooling, where you finish high school and go to college, then figure our how to make it apply. We launched head long into what we believed God called us to do, then tailored our education to accommodate what we were building.  I am not touting that as the best method, but it proved practical and worked well for us.  I am especially proud of Cindy, who managed to run the accounting side of our ministry, birth, raise, and home-school four kids, and earn the first of two doctorates.  

If anyone asks…I married UP!

Fast forward to the next decade.  The children were growing.  The home-school continued.  We traveled and ministered all around the United States.  I used to joke that my kids were out of warranty early.  Yet God had begun dealing with our hearts about the decade in front of us.  Over the first the years of the second decade, He turned our hearts to a different realm of ministry.  Travel gave way to being home.  Itinerant ministry shifted into pastoral ministry.  Home-schooling shifted into going to school.  The house was traded for a bigger house.  We continued our education.  Cindy earned her second degree - a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. The family grew.  Life grew. And, with it, the joys and pains grew…as did our faith in God and in one another.

The life that seemed to move at a snail’s pace now juggernaut’s down a timeline in a blur.   The kid’s I taught to ride bikes are now starting to drive cars.  

Girl’s don’t have “cooties” and boys aren’t “GROSS!”  

 Money took on yet a different dynamic, because the economy of our second decade is different than the economy of the first.  

 Funny, the money struggles that we faced which kept us “tethered” have proven to be the lessons that have kept us 

floating this time around. 

Hmmmm.  

 The time Cindy and I share together requires even MORE creativity and invention, because now the kids KNOW…and let’s just leave it at that!

As I stated in the beginning, life happens in decades.  It is one of the most important things ever taught to me and one of the few lessons I can say I held to throughout my life.  I could not draw a picture of everything I wanted to see accomplished within a decade.  However, I can say that I was able to frame a picture of many things I wanted to happen in that decade.  Having that picture gave us something to shoot for.  It provided a destination and with it a determination to “get there”.   

Where there is no vision, people perish.   

This has proven to be true in our lives, and as I look over the past two decades, I am thankful that much of what we set out to accomplish, we have accomplished.  Some thing are not done.  yet they are part of the master plan and will be fabricated 

into the next decade.  Such is the beauty of growth.

What does the next decade hold?  Kids could get married and maybe even make us grandparents ( it better be in that order – lol ) College graduations? There are certainly some areas of ministry that God is leading us into, which have not been tapped yet.  All of it will eventually require a plan, but in this moment, it requires a dream.  All that we are called to accomplish and who we are called to be is right in front of us.  We cannot be small in our thinking.  We cannot be afraid.  Just as it was in the beginning, we cannot yield to the “saner, safer” voices who are intent on keeping us nicely anchored in the harbor.

“A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are for.” 

                                                                                                         Grace Hopper -  

The next decade will see sunny days, and squalls.  There will be joy.  There will probably be pain.  Most certainly there will be trials, because every great accomplishment occurs with trial.  The next decade will NOT be easy, but it WILL be great!