Walking with Christ has been exceedingly
and abundantly joyful. Even the hard lessons that had to be
learned have been utterly rewarding. As for traveling the trail
of life with my wife, Annie, I can say the same has been true! I
want my son to know that the day he allows the two roads to
join—his walk with the Lord and his life with his wife—then the
truest of bliss is his.
One of the most sobering thoughts I can recall came to me a
few months before our daughter’s wedding. Annie and I were
considering which person or pastor would be the best to provide
premarital counseling for Heidi and her fiance, Emmitt. As we
pondered the choices, it suddenly occurred to me: She’s been in
premarital counseling for 20 years! My knees weakened and the
sweat beads formed on my wrinkled and hairless forehead.
Since our children were old enough to breathe, they've been
watching their mom and dad in the drama of marriage. It dawned
on me that the kind of spouses they will become would be
directly related to the kind of teachers Annie and I have been.
The classroom where our kids have been learning about the skills
of matrimony have been occupied nonstop for more than 7000 days.
So, in reality, it’s not if they learned anything, it is what
they learned. This fact makes any parent cringe. All Annie and I
could do was hope we had done some things well enough for our
children’s lives would benefit to some degree.
Heidi’s November wedding came so quickly that it made my head
and heart (and wallet) spin in disbelief. It was a beautiful
event and worth every penny I will never see again. But the
reprieve from spending our energies was brief. Before that
unforgettable day had ended, our son had proposed to his
girlfriend. (For almost three hours I wasn’t writing checks! It
was a good moment of rest.) Annie and I slid out of one
emotional roller coaster and climbed right back into another.
But it’s quite fine with us. Our daughter-in-law is a welcomed
addition to our lives. In fact, we have prayed for her arrival
for years. The prayer was, "Oh, God, give Nathan the girl of our
dreams." And He did!
In the time that remained prior to our family’s second
wedding in 11 months, I had plenty of opportunity to think about
what helpful things I might say to my son. Knowing that my only
qualification to be any kind of premarital coun-selor to him was
found in the fact that I have been married to his mother for
more than a quarter of a century, I set out to find a memorable
way to deliver my limited knowledge. Thankfully, a great idea
came from my sweet wife.
Since thousands of volumes have already been written about a
husband’s responsibility to his wife (and Nathan would do well
to read some of them), I accepted Annie’s sug-gestion to reduce
my thoughts into the convenient space of an acrostic. Using the
word "marriage" as a guide, what follows are some things I want
my son to know about "becoming one with a woman." In no way does
it exhaust all I wish for him to know—or all he needs to
know—but it does touch the foremost issues that might be of some
help to him.