My Husband

Back in 1982, shortly after our engagement

R.J. and I are celebrating our twenty-ninth wedding anniversary today. We may have hit the point where one could begin to say our marriage has “withstood the test of time.” To be completely honest, back when we were first engaged , there were those who did not have confidence in our pairing. First of all, we had only been dating each other for three months when we announced our engagement. That was surprising to friends and family. Secondly, I guess in many ways, we were an odd couple. He was (and still is, oddly) a couple years younger than I. It seemed to make a bigger difference when he was 20 and I was 22. He was the oldest son of young parents; I was the youngest daughter of older parents.  In fact, his mom is just six months older than my oldest brother. R.J. was pretty tall, especially when compared with my sadly lacking altitude. His preferred style of humor was inflicting sarcasm, while mine was sharing bad puns. He was blunt and a little abrasive, whereas I would go waaaaay out of my way to avoid conflict. With so many differences, were we a good match? Maybe to understand the answer to that question, one needs to know a little more about my husband.

Our wedding day, June 18, 1983

It is easy to see R.J. as a completely logical person, approaching the science fiction standard of a Vulcan. He knows so much, remembering virtually everything he reads. Knowledge breeds logic, right? And it makes sense to assume that logical brains have no need for feelings, for passion. However, that view of him is far from complete. He does enjoy approaching things from an “a+b=c” sort of framework, but there is so much more to him than that.

Our life together is built on a scaffolding of priorities. God comes first. We have both known the Lord as our personal Savior for a lot of years, but most of our growth came after we started attending Christ Community Church almost 21 years ago. We were both among the first group that Pastor Paul baptized at our “new” church building almost 19 years ago. Believer baptism was new to us at that time, having come from a church background where infant baptism was practiced, but we followed where God led us. We grew into supporting our church with service and with our finances. When we believe in a cause, we are sacrificial in our giving to that cause. Together, R.J. and I have a great desire and commitment to give to Kingdom causes.

After God, our priority is family. Every day, R.J.  goes to a job that stresses him . The stress part isn’t pleasant, but the job has been a huge blessing to us over the years. We can pay our bills and have had a pretty comfortable life. His sacrifice helped build the support system that allowed me to be a stay-at-home mom for many years and also enabled me to homeschool our son Joseph from sixth grade through high school. R.J. was passionate about those decisions, which made it easy for me to carry them out wholeheartedly.

When you look at the two of us, you will be tempted to say, “Liz is the ‘feeler’ and R.J. is the ‘thinker’.” Although there is some truth to that line of thinking, life is rarely that simplistic. When we were first married, I was a door slammer, a walk-off-in-a-huff sort of emoter. R.J. never let that go. He always made me stop fussing and fuming and articulate what I was feeling. He was persistent, and I learned from him to slow down the “emotion train”. I can be angry and not sin (not all the time, but sometimes) now because of the verbalization skills I learned from him. I believe he has learned a great deal from the kids and me as well. He has become a man that speaks the words “I love you” freely and liberally to us all in spite of the fact that he did not hear those words regularly as he grew up. Would you be surprised to know that HE introduced ME to the Anne of Green Gables books, and still gets choked up reading excerpts out loud to me? Yeah, he’s an old softie, whether he shows that side of himself to others outside the family or not.

Sometimes, it is hard for a person who leads with her heart to understand a person who leads with his head. R.J. and I have run into this difficulty many times over the years. Gradually, over our twenty-nine years of marriage, I have begun to understand that his statements are not accusations, and his questions are just requests for information. Suggestions for improvements to an idea or project of mine don’t mean he hates the idea or project; in contrast, those suggestions probably mean he is climbing aboard the only way analytical brain knows how.  His brain works in a way where he likes to have all the information first, and then he can make a decision.  I work in a way where I feel led to a cause and then I look for information about it. But I have learned, over the years, that it really does pay to do some research before spending time and money supporting something. I have learned that R.J.’s passion for knowledge is healthy and wise, and I respect his need to inspect. Because I know him intimately, I know that his desire to support Kingdom causes is great, and it is not diminished in the least by his quest for information. 

R.J.’s love of knowledge has blossomed into a love of biblical knowledge. He has read through the Bible every year for many years, each time with a different focus on his reading plan. He reads giant-sized tomes of theological writings, from apologetics texts to systematic theology and all sorts of other references. He has taken a number of free theological courses online. He is well-versed in the writings of many Christian thinkers, in addition to being well-versed in the philosophies of many prominent individuals who oppose Christianity. He is a great resource on a great many subjects, and as such, he might just know exactly when the rest of us misspeak or misunderstand or misrepresent the Bible or a theological concept – and he might just feel obliged to correct us. As one family member once observed, he tends to “sit quietly in the corner until somebody makes a mistake.” Most of the time, he corrects others so we can know what the truth is. He firmly believes that Christians must not “check their brains at the door.” He despises frivolous Christianity, with no thought or foundation, and would love for all of us to approach Christianity as thinking believers. 

When I consider the question of whether a person who is primarily driven by the quest for knowledge can also be a person of passion, I have first hand knowledge that the answer is a resounding “YES!” Just last summer, I spent three weeks half way around the world, throwing myself into God’s work in Cambodia. This was a sacrifice of money for our family. It was something that our family prayerfully and thoughtfully considered. However, from the time God first called me to go, that decision was supported and embraced 100% by my logical husband. His love for me and for the purpose God had for me in Cambodia was evident. He wept as we parted. He handled my absence ably, but it was not easy. He supported me and encouraged me from afar while I was gone, and held my hand and listened to me when I returned. His prayers for me kept me going through the tough things I saw. I know, and he knows, that Cambodia changed me. And because it changed me, it has impacted US. That’s how God works.

God fashioned R.J. He created the amazing brain that remembers all those details. God knows R.J.’s heart, too. He wove the intellect and the passion together. He gave R.J. a thirst for Biblical knowledge and a desire to share that knowledge with others. Sure, the delivery system is flawed at times, as the human who is delivering the message is a sinner like the rest of us. But the heart and love are there, if you just know how to look for them.  

Our twenty-nine years of married life have been a source of growth, intellectually and spiritually. R.J. challenges me, and I challenge him.  We have found commitment to God, each other, and family. I’d say we match up pretty well, after all, and I love that man deeply. Happy anniversary to my beloved R.J.!