Another Anniversary
Born to wealthy parents in New York City, to say William Sloane Coffin led an eclectic life is an understatement. He was a U.S. Army veteran, worked for the C.I.A., completed multiple degrees at Yale University where from 1957 to 1975 he was their chaplain, and served the historic Riverside Church as senior minister. He was also an author, lecturer, and anti-war and civil rights advocate. “The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love,” is one remark he is famous for you might be familiar with. Love is strange. It can be both confidently known and elusive. It carries with it banter, bickering, and bouts of strong dispute. Depending on the situation, love may embrace or push back. Love leads and follows, innovates and simplifies, serves and is served. It is not, I think it is fair to say, for the faint of heart.
“In the name of love,” as The Supremes once sang, I am happy to share that Renata and I celebrated 17 years of marriage last Saturday. Back on January 13, 2007, we had thunder and lightning like nobody’s business. A crazy rainstorm hit, which is normal for Central Texas, soaking a good portion of those gathered at the City of Belton’s First Baptist Church. Rev. Andy Davis, who eventually pastored there for 32 years, officiated our nuptials and two years later officiated my ordination service in the same spot on the stage of that quintessential downtown sanctuary. I love that church for lots of reasons, but none more critical than the part it played in inaugurating our time together as husband and wife.
With anyone seeking premarital counsel from us, we are quick to share that marriage is, at least in some ways, like a snowstorm or rainstorm: angelically beautiful and precious yet unpredictable, even hazardous. As no-nonsense nurturers, we just wouldn’t feel right choosing safe pleasantries over providing accurate information about such an important topic. Marriage is an iconic leap into the abyss of the unknown. Whether you have known your intended spouse since grade school, you met on a blind date, or you crossed paths well into retirement at a holiday party, you know them through the courting process, but you don’t really, really know them. You lack first-hand receipts as to how they handle money (especially not that belongs to both of you), if they can boil water, how they are with disappointment or adversity, if they are unhealthily attached to their parents, or what secrets, if any, are collecting dust in their life’s storage closets. You have no clue as to how they will care for you in the long run, not to mention the challenges that will come your way.
Led by God, the point is to exchange vows with someone you want to share your entire life with, not who you think will be perfect by any stretch of the imagination. Marriage is far from a romantic comedy or social media post where the idea that “all’s well that ends well” is easily manipulated. Surely, everyone faces unique variables as a couple. Although I firmly believe the Bible offers marching orders, guidelines, and guardrails for marriage, like it does for so much else, sacrificial love remains the biggest ethical code at-play. In Ursula LeGuin’s novel The Lath of Heaven, she writes: “Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”
I have the evidence to prove that I was a chunky kid. I may have, in fact, put the chunk in chunky. I was a chunky baby and chunky toddler, who in due time became a chunky, yet strong teenager, which is how football entered my life. Despite being a captain of my high school football team, as an introvert who kept to himself and read books and struggled with the politics around ever being granted cool status, let’s just say girls did not pay me much attention. All the way into my young adult years, I was the prototypical nice guy, well acquainted with spending time in the “friend zone.” It can be a lonely hangout.
You can see then how dumbfounded I was that a woman as strikingly beautiful, intelligent, talkative, and cooler than I knew how to be gave me the time of day upon meeting in our mid-twenties at work. According to Proverbs 18:22, “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.” I am grateful to have a wife, and a good, godly one at that. In 17 years, we have called Texas, Pennsylvania, Georgia, West Virginia, Washington, DC, Maryland, Michigan, and British Columbia, Canada home, all as I have pursued God’s call for various ministry ventures. A lot of where we have been sent and what we have been nudged by the Spirit to do has not been fun, fair, or full of accolades or a return on the investments we made. Even so, the experiences—the good, bad, and ugly—are part of what have knitted us together with cords that cannot be easily broken (Ecclesiastes 4:12), and for that I give thanks.
Renata is my absolute best friend. I do not think about anyone as much as I do her. I do not spend as much time with anyone else as I do her. Flaws and all, differences and annoyances included, I remain convinced that for me she is the best thing since sliced bread. In a romantic, familial, or platonic way, I encourage you to tell those you love that you love them, and certainly to show it as well. Just like reaching 17 years of marriage, tomorrow is not promised. Each day is a gift, and love is something that in whatever form must be stewarded well, rather than taken for granted.