Vaughan Family Update--Christmas 2022

Vaughan Family Update

Christmas 2022

As Christmas time draws near, we think of all the good folks with whom we'd love to share a few moments of catching up.  Because that won't happen in person for most of us, please allow this brief update to catch you up, at least a bit, on the happenings in the Vaughan tribe. 

Linda continues to thrive on teaching her GED students for Lexington School District 2.  She comes home with a story most every day and sometimes shares a Hallelujah moment with Dee when one of her students graduates or makes a significant gain toward it.  During two medically mysterious months of 2022, Linda was very sick, running a fever each day and feeling weak and tired.  The symptoms abated before we received a clear diagnosis, so we're calling her illness "Gone."  She loves teaching young adults at St. Andrews and cherishes every opportunity to be Nama to our five grands.  She and Dee celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary in July.  

Elizabeth Vaughan Davison stays very busy as a pastor's wife, mother of three, special education teacher, board member of a charter school, and graduate student.  She and her husband Josh live in Gaffney, SC (Linda's hometown) where Josh serves as Pastor of East Gaffney Baptist Church and is pursuing his Doctor of Ministry degree.  Their boys, Liam, Creighton, and Josiah, are now unbelievably 11, 9, and 7 years of age respectively.  All three are doing well in school and stay busy with church activities. 

Liam loves to draw and is very gracious in sharing his creations with family.  Creighton has taken a special interest in kick-boxing this year, which will prepare him well for attending Gaffney football games and family gatherings.  Josiah won his school's spelling bee, which means his Papa needs to keep him on speed dial.  

Josh and Jen Vaughan, our resident family physical therapists, live in Lexington, SC, not too far from Dee and Linda.  Their daughter, our only

 granddaughter, Juliana, turned three this year, attends preschool at St. Andrews, and has begun ballet and tumbling lessons.  She loves to sing and practice assertiveness.  Juliana received a baby brother this year.  James is 9 months old, and is presently pursuing a career in crawling, climbing, and falling.  He is an incredibly happy little boy and brings much joy to us all.  He, too, attends preschool at St. Andrews, so Papa Dee has numerous opportunities to sneak a peek during the day and often picks up Juliana and James from school and takes them to his office for a dose of Papa Time before their parents arrive to pick them up.  Josh has competed in CrossFit competitions this year and is presently training to run a marathon.  Having two preschoolers is probably a good start in learning to run all day.  

Andrew Vaughan is thriving in his work at Palmetto Citizens Federal Credit Union where he was promoted from a teller to a loan assistant.  Andrew enjoys his coworkers and customers and played a part in his branch's Halloween Star Wars theme. He makes a pretty convincing Anakin Skywalker.  He and Richard enjoy video games, park visits, and binging on Netflix series.  Andrew moved into a new apartment this year and has officially entered the adult world by asking for household items for his birthday and Christmas. Judged by this standard, his father never grew up. 

In November of this year, Dee reached the milestone of forty years of pastoring (and pestering) Baptist churches, the most recent eleven years at St. Andrews Baptist in Columbia.  Dee also became an associate with Pinnacle Leadership Associates, a clergy and church coaching and consulting ministry.  He published his fifth book this year, the most personal he's written, a journal of his battle with depression and how the story of Jacob wrestling through the night with a mysterious attacker became Dee's inspiration to persevere in the healing process until he, like Jacob, received a blessing from his adversary.  "Don't Let Go Before Dawn" is Dee's effort to encourage those struggling with depression and those who love them, and to help Christians and churches break free of the stigma too often attached to emotional illness.  Dee was the featured speaker for the 30th anniversary celebration of Helping Hands of Woodruff, SC, a benevolence ministry he helped launch while he lived and served in Woodruff.  Dee received his Medicare card this year, which means he needs to get serious about planning the next chapter of his life. 

So, what's new with you?  The Vaughans would love to hear from you and learn about your life adventures.  As Christmas comes, know we thank God for the blessing of wonderful friends like you.  

 

Will Jesus Come This Christmas?

I walked down a hospital hallway asking myself that question.  I knew the date was December 25.  I was the chaplain on call at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center.  I had actually volunteered to work Christmas Day.  Our supervisor had called his four residents to his office for the annual ritual of the Christmas work schedule lottery.  By random selection, one of us would spend Christmas Day at the hospital while the other three celebrated with family.  Just before the big drawing, I spoke up.  I was the only single person in the chaplain’s department and I wanted my coworkers to be with their spouses and children.  That was the noble side of my volunteering.  The not-so-noble side was that I didn’t want to face Christmas that year.  My dad had died just two months earlier, the sudden casualty of an aggressive inoperable brain tumor.  I thought keeping busy and focusing my energies on the needs of patients would be the least painful way I could pass the time.  So, there I was, walking down the hallway, speaking to every other employee I passed, and doubting that anything holy would happen that day.  

 
Christmas is a long, tough day for most everyone spending it in a hospital.  All but the sickest patients are discharged so they can benefit from the blessings of home.  Entire floors of the hospital are empty with those too sick to go home gathered into a few active units staffed by other lottery losers.  Between the grief inside me and the “left behind” feeling of those around me, my expectations for the day were pretty low.
What I failed to remember that day was Christmas has never happened in perfect places.  The holy family, a young woman tortured by the gossipy whispers of her fellow villagers, a young man leading his very expectant wife on a twenty mile journey to meet the taxation requirements of a cruel occupying army, a little town so overflowing with guests that no accommodations could be found for these weary travelers, the last choice refuge of a place meant for animals, the terror of giving birth without the help of a midwife, the support of family, or the simplest comforts of home.  Jesus certainly wasn’t born in a perfect time or place.  And, as I would learn that Christmas Day, he still comes into this world in less than perfect times and places. 

As I came to the end of that long day of ministry, I propped up my feet, leaned back in my chair, and realized I had an answer to my question.  Jesus, had, in fact, come that Christmas.   

He came—to the parents and grandparents of a beautiful but tragically stillborn child, a family that clung to the hope that because of Jesus, they would, one day, hold that child in heaven. 

He came—to a woman who wanted to go home, but knew that her circumstances were taking her, instead, to a nursing home; a woman who, amid all the unwanted changes in her life, rested in the truth that would not change, the Savior who is forever faithful, the love from which nothing could ever separate her.

He came—to a man who invited me to share the Christmas celebration his family had brought to him at the hospital because he couldn’t go home, and we knew he never would. It was a happy day; it was a good day because he knew that every day is a gift from God, every day a gift to share with those you love. 

He came—in the hospital cafeteria as my family gave up their Christmas feast to drive an hour to spend a little time with me feasting on hospital cuisine.  Though we all missed my dad at that meal, we also knew how blessed we were to be together.   

This Christmas may find you in a far from perfect place, a place that feels far away from the peace and joy of the season.  May you learn what I learned that Christmas long ago.  Jesus doesn’t wait for a perfect place to be born. The One born in a stable is ready to be born into your messy world and mine.  

The Gift We All Need

Christmas is coming to Mayberry and, with it, a strong spirit of good will.  Andy rationalizes a rubric for releasing his prisoners for the holiday, comparing it to students leaving school for Christmas vacation.  The jail is empty and hearts are full as they prepare for a Christmas Eve celebration, that is until Ben Weaver stomps into the courthouse with Sam Muggins, a Mayberry citizen Ben has caught making moonshine.  Ben’s not concerned that Sam might be drinking on Christmas Eve, just that he's missing out on the money he would make if Sam bought his alcohol from Ben’s store.  Ben stubbornly demands that Sam be locked up, even on Christmas Eve.  He promises to cause trouble for Andy if he doesn’t keep Sam in stir for the season.  

When Ben returns to check on Andy’s law enforcement, he finds that Andy has “arrested” Sam’s wife and children and brought them to the jail.  Andy has also sworn in several additional “deputies” to guard these dangerous outlaws.  Actually, of course, Andy was reuniting the Muggins family for Christmas and had moved the Christmas party to the courthouse. 

 Ben, of course, protests these developments, but can’t help but be attracted to the celebration, the good news, the happy gathering he finds in the courthouse.  He wants to join the festivities but doesn’t know how.  He only knows how to make an entrance by stirring up trouble.  The only part Ben knows how to play in life’s story is that of a Christmas scoffing Scrooge. 

 Though Ben has succeeded in putting Sam Muggins in jail, Ben is the one imprisoned, not by iron bars and locked doors, but by his loneliness.  He’s locked outside the season, unable to share its joy and love with others.  He sings the words of “Away in a Manger” looking in through the bars that lock him out of the joy of Christmas. 

 How many people learn a bad way to belong?  In one of my first ministry jobs, I had a coworker who stayed in trouble with his supervisors and fellow workers.  Our boss described him as a man who would run over people while driving the ambulance to the scene of an accident.  He didn’t want to be in trouble.  He just didn’t know any other way to get people’s attention.  He’d rather stay in hot water than be ignored. 

 Wise man that he is, Andy finally realizes what Ben is actually wanting to accomplish through all his cantankerous shenanigans and agrees to lock him up for his “crimes.”  Andy is going to find a way to make a place for Ben at the party.  He’s not going to leave him standing in the cold outside of Christmas.  I wonder how many lonely Bens get left in the alley. 

 Before Andy brings Ben to jail, he allows him to stop by his store to pick up some items he will need while serving his sentence.  When he opens his suitcase, it is, in fact, filled with gifts he wants to share gladly with everyone gathered in the courthouse.  Ben had a lot to give, but couldn’t until someone saw through his scowl and gave him a chance. 

 A chance.  That’s the gift Ben Weaver received that Christmas Eve.  It’s the gift every person needs and deserves.  Let’s put it at the top of our Christmas list.

 Footnote: This is the only holiday episode in the eight-year run of The Andy Griffith Show.  If you don’t believe in Christmas magic, watch Barney closely while he opens and reads his card from Hilda Mae.  It changes from one card to another, right before your eyes. 

Messages from Mayberry is my collection of spiritual life lessons drawn from my twenty-five favorite episodes of The Andy Griffith Show.  Click here to learn more about it. 

A Will in Search of a Way

Helping Hands Ministries is the beautiful story of a will in search of a way. Thirty years ago, my family lived in this wonderful community as I served First Baptist Church as pastor. Our Elizabeth was a third-grader at the Primary School, our Josh was in four-year-old preschool and Andrew did not seem to be a remote possibility. Elizabeth is now in her 17th year of teaching special education, a pastor’s wife and mother of three of my grandsons. Josh is in his 8th year of work as a physical therapist. He and his wife, Jen, also a physical therapist, have blessed us with two more grands, a girl and a boy. Andrew is still surprising us and enjoys his work in banking. I can’t believe my children are grown. And I can’t believe that Helping Hands, born during my time here, has lived and served and grown for thirty years. I knew it when it was just a kid! Let me share a few memories of those early days. 

First Baptist, like many other churches in this area, faced a great challenge in seeking to minister to families in need. We wanted to be faithful to our calling to share our blessings with others, but we also wanted to be wise in how we helped. I was constantly frustrated in my efforts to be both compassionate and responsible in responding to the needs that came to our attention. I didn’t have the time to get to know the families and their situations well, so I wasn’t confident that the needs were always real. I also lacked perspective, because I didn’t know whether we were the first or the tenth community church that helped a particular family. I engaged several local pastors in a discussion of how we could do a better job of helping. The way to improve our ministry to families in need, we decided, was to combine our resources and centralize our information in a shared community ministry that would specialize in learning about a family’s situation, evaluating their needs, and responding to them fairly and compassionately. That’s how the dream of Helping Hands Ministries began. 

 As I talked to community folks about this dream, I was thrilled to learn that a number of Woodruff area businesses and civic groups also wanted a better way to help people. They, too, weren’t organized to evaluate a family’s situation and respond in the best way. Their interest allowed our dream to grow. Helping Hands would be more than a handful of churches sharing resources to help the community. We would be a community-wide partnership of churches, businesses, civic groups, and individuals who cared for people. I was overwhelmed by how many people wanted to partner with us. 

 We had a dream but, as always happens, a few challenges stood between the dream and the prize. Officially, there was no “us” with which to partner. We didn’t have an organization. We didn’t have a location. We didn’t have tax exempt status. We didn’t have any staff or employees. At first, we didn’t even have a name! Other than that, things were great. As we stepped up to wrestle with these challenges, I could have written the words of the worship song, “God will make a way, where there seems to be no way.” There is no other explanation for what happened.

I enlisted a group of citizens from our community to serve as our organizing committee and, later, our first board of directors, though they didn’t yet know exactly what they would direct. As they say, we were building this plane as we flew it. That first group shared a compelling vision and boundless energy for what we wanted to do. I’ve never seen a diverse group of citizens work together with such unity of purpose and harmony of spirit as that group. 

 Because of my vast legal experience, watching reruns of Matlock and Perry Mason, I contacted the IRS on behalf of our group and received a generous stack of paperwork I would need to complete and return to be considered for tax-exempt status. I am a bit of a writer. I’ve written sermons, Sunday School lessons, drama scripts, and a few books. But that application became my one and only work of fiction. I didn’t lie. I did nothing to mislead the IRS. But many of their questions asked for much more than I or anyone else knew at that point. “Project and itemize your budget for the next five years.” We didn’t yet have a budget, so my answers were a blend of imagination and wishful thinking. But my semi-fictional application had a happy ending, as we were granted tax-exempt status and could allow our donors to write off their donations. 

 But where would this new ministry be located? We had no money to pay rent. No church had the space to commit to such an undertaking and we didn’t want Helping Hands to seem like any one church’s adopted ministry. Then we saw a news story in that bastion of journalistic excellence, The Woodruff News. I’m proud to say that I wrote a column for that newspaper, whenever the Spirit moved me and Milton Smith had space to print it. The story that caught our attention was that the Woodruff-Roebuck Water District was building a new office on the outskirts of town. What, pray tell, we wondered, might they want to do with their old location on Chamblin Street? After working behind the scenes through “diplomatic channels,” our board attended a Water District board meeting to ask permission to use their old location until they sold it. They very graciously welcomed us to use the facility with the clear understanding that they might sell it at any time and we would have to find another location, possibly within a few months. If my math skills are working well, Helping Hands has now been at the Chamblin Street location for about three hundred and sixty months. The vision and generosity of the Water District gave our ministry a wonderful home. 

 We had a vision. We had a place. We even had the blessing of the Internal Revenue Service! Now we faced the challenge of finding the most important resource of a helping ministry, volunteers, especially the person who would talk to families and decide what help we could offer. Our first interviewer was a retired pastor and missionary named Jesse Smith. When we interviewed Jesse for the job, volunteer though it was, he quickly told us that he had enough experience in helping ministries to, as he put it, “separate the greedy from the needy.” Jesse also made it clear to us that whether a family received a bag of groceries or not, they would get an earful of the gospel. He very naturally respectfully found opportunities to share his faith with the people he helped. He got us off to a good start and kept us mindful that what we were doing, we were doing in the name and spirit of Jesus. 

About the time Helping Hands celebrated its second birthday, I rotated off the board of directors and, soon after, moved my family and ministry to Charleston, SC. Though at a distance, I’ve been cheering you on ever since. I’m proud of Helping Hands. I’m proud of what thirty years of support says about the faith and values of this great community. I’m grateful to have played a part in those early days. And, like the children I was busy raising thirty years ago, I’m so proud of how you’ve grown and the many ways you’re changing the world by being Good Samaritans to those whose lives have broken down along the way. 

 I turned 65 this year so, like many new Medicare recipients, I’m ruminating about how I’ve invested my life, sorting out the treasure I cherish from the junk that must have seemed like a good idea at the time. I treasure my involvement with Helping Hands because of how long and how well you’ve served the easily and often forgotten brothers and sisters of Jesus. Happy birthday, Helping Hands, and may God grant you many many more.

Stuck for a Reason

     

This excerpt is taken
from my book,
  Don't Let Go Before Dawn.

Jacob was at a crossing-over time in his life.  He was on his way to see his long-estranged brother, Esau.  He had reached the banks of the Jabbok River and wanted to cross over to the other side.  He sent the people he loved and the possessions he had acquired through hard work and trickery across the river, but he couldn’t continue the journey with them.  We’re not sure whether he sent his family and possessions across the river without him or if he took them across then returned by himself.  In either case, Jacob was stuck on the wrong side of the river. 

“Stuck” is a word many people have used to describe depression, the inability and, at times, the lack of desire to cross the next river, to move forward  into the next chapter of their life’s story. 

I was stuck in depression and I didn’t like it.  I complained to my counselor that I was so weary of feeling bad and was frustrated and angry that my doctor hadn’t found a medicine or combination of medicines that would lessen my symptoms.  Upon hearing this, Charlie’s face took on its own look of disgust as he challenged me to understand my breakdown on the wrong side of life’s river in a different way.  He told me, very emphatically, “This is not just about finding the right medicine to treat your symptoms.  This is about how you’re living your life!”

The day I heard those words was the day I began to understand that I might be stuck for a reason.  Beyond the genetic predisposition for depression I was certain I had inherited and could not change, I started so see that the way I was living my life, something I can work to understand, evaluate, and change, was a factor in my illness too; perhaps a greater factor than I had ever thought possible.  Even more amazingly, I pondered the possibility that I might leave this place where I’d been stuck a better person than when I arrived.  The challenge to understand the way I was living my life and change it for the better was the first glimmer of hope and the first feeling of empowerment I had felt in a very long time. 

If you are stuck in a season of depression right now, I want to challenge you to think about what my counselor told me.  You are stuck on what feels like the wrong side of life’s river, separated from people, from joy, from motivation, even from God, not just to find the right medicine to alleviate your symptoms and allow you to continue your life where you left off.  You may be stuck for a reason.  You may be depressed, in part, because of the way you’re living your life.  I don’t challenge you with that thought to blame or condemn you for your illness.  If you are like I was, you’re probably doing a very good job of that already.  I invite you to see being stuck on the wrong side of the river as an opportunity to understand yourself with new insight and an invitation to grow.  After a long night of being stuck, you can, like Jacob, cross the river more healthy and whole than you’ve ever been before. 

Be Still Until You Know Which Way is Up

 

David, a physician and friend of our family, served as a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War.  As part of his training, he was taught what to do if he had to bail out of his plane over water.  A pilot who ejects from his aircraft hits the water very hard while spinning very rapidly.  He feels himself moving through the water and experiences that lifesaving urge to get to the surface as quickly as possible.  The problem is, he doesn’t know which way is up.  A pilot who begins kicking and paddling too soon often swims down instead of up and takes himself further from the surface he wants to reach and closer to drowning.  So, the pilot is trained to wait—to be still—until the force of his entry into the water has run out and he slowly comes to a stop.  Then and only then, the buoyancy of his flight vest begins to tug him gently toward the surface.  Once he knows which way is up, he can add his effort to what the vest is doing and reach the surface where he can breathe again. 

Though few of us will serve as fighter pilots, most of us face some unexpected crashes.  We hit hard.  We spin out of control.  We don’t know which way is up.  We’re tempted to do something, do anything, to get back to the place where we can breathe.  But until we know which way is up, our efforts, as sincere as they may be, may take us in the wrong direction and away from the life we long to experience.  We, like fighter pilots spinning and sinking through the water, must wait, we must be still before God until the gentle tug of His Spirit guides us in the direction we need to go.  And once we know which way is up, once we know the direction that will lead us toward life and not self-destruction, we are ready to add our effort to what God is doing.  We can kick and paddle and move ourselves toward the place where our spirits can breathe again and we can feel restored to the fullness of life. 

The Best Prayer I Ever Prayed

I’ve had the opportunity to pray at some very special times and places.  I’ve held new babies in my arms and thanked God the gift of new life.  I’ve prayed in a federal courtroom as people from many lands became citizens of the United States.  I’ve heard my voice echo through a sound system as I prayed at high school and college football games.  I’ve helped people reach out to God in prayer and ask Him for his gift of salvation.  I’ve prayed with my children at bedtime.  All of these times of prayer are very special to me.  But as I look back across my life, one prayer stands alone.

The best prayer I ever prayed happened in an old Ford van.  That van had belonged to my father.  He had used it in his work.  He had customized that van with many ingenious touches that made it comfortable and useful.  He was written all over it.  But he was gone.  A brain tumor took him away from us so quickly that we hardly had a chance to say goodbye.  That van that had helped earn a living for our family was now my moving van as I hauled some furniture from my apartment to my parents’ home, things I had borrowed while living in a small apartment while I served as a hospital chaplain.  Linda and I were to be married in a few weeks and we would have a place of our own.  As I began the thirty-mile trip toward home, my mind was filled with memories of times Dad and I had ridden together.  Heading out early on Saturday morning to clean carpet to earn some extra money for college.  Riding together to one of my church-league basketball games.  Dad showing me the most recent improvement he’d made to the ultimate work vehicle.  Those were good memories.  But as my mind turned away from that cherished past and toward the future, my heart ached.  I thought about all the times we would miss Dad, just in the next year: my brother’s high school graduation, my sister’s wedding, my wedding, my seminary graduation, my ordination to ministry, my first church.  Somewhere amid all these thoughts, I began to talk to God, first in silence, then out loud, then in a tearful angry voice, and finally in a scream.  I told God that I didn’t understand.  I confessed that I was angry that my father had been taken from me at such a bad time.  With both tears and fire in my eyes, I cried out with a broken heart. 

 Thirty miles later, when I pulled into the driveway of my parents’ house,  I was home in more ways than one. I had also come home to God.  My honest though angry prayer had broken down a wall I had allowed to stand between me and my Heavenly Father.  The same prayer that strained my voice brought healing to my heart.  That, I believe, is the best prayer I ever prayed.

 In Jeremiah 29:13, God gives us a wonderful invitation and a powerful promise:

 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

We find God when we search for Him with all of our hearts—all that is in our hearts.  We can’t seek God and hide from Him at the same time.  The same God who holds my future in His hands is great enough and loving enough to hold my questions, my struggles, even my anger.  I don’t know where you will be or what you will be facing when you offer God the best prayer you’ve ever prayed, but I do know this: that prayer will be honest, it will trust God enough to seek Him with all your heart.

See Others with the Eyes of Christ

 I was honored to lead the funeral service of a wonderful servant of Christ, Rev. Felton Cox.  In preparing for that service, the family shared a story with me that illustrates how deeply heaven's poetry was etched upon Felton's life.  Felton saw others with the eyes of Christ.  

When the Cox family lived outside Fountain Inn and served the Bethany Baptist Church, one road connected the parsonage and church to school and town.  Each time the family drove down that road, they passed what you might call a joint, a place where drinking and gambling and many other destructive things happened daily.  That joint was so well known for the violence that broke out there that it earned the nickname, “The Bloody Bucket.”  Michael and Larry heard tall tales from their friends who lived close to that establishment of the things they’d seen and heard.  To Christian people in that community, the bucket was a place to avoid.  

One day, Felton was driving Larry home from baseball practice, coming down the road from the school ballfield toward the parsonage where they lived.  They were still some distance from home when Larry noticed that the car was slowing down.  The next thing he knew, Larry saw his dad turn into the driveway of the Bloody Bucket.  Felton turned off the engine and told Larry to wait in the car.  He wouldn’t be gone long.  Then, to Larry’s horror, his father the pastor walked into that den of iniquity.  After just a few minutes, Felton returned to the car and the two of them made their way home.  I don’t know how long it took Larry to muster the courage to ask Felton, “Dad, what did you do in there?”  “Well son, I walked in and asked those who were there if I could offer a prayer for them.  They were too surprised to say ‘no.’  After I prayed, I urged the group to give God a chance in their lives.  Then, I invited them to come to our church on Sunday.”  

Most people drove past the Bloody Bucket and saw temptations to escape, sinners to scorn, and bad influences to avoid.  Felton looked at that same place, those same people, and saw men and women Jesus died to save, strugglers who needed to know that they were born for better than the lives they knew because God loved them. I don’t suppose a 97-year-old man qualifies as an organ donor, but how I wish he could give us his eyes, eyes that saw others as people to love, not sinners to hate. Felton saw others with the eyes of Christ.  

Lessons from the First Forty: What Forty Years of Marriage Has Taught Me About Life Genesis 2:18-24

 

I don’t preach about marriage very often.  Marriage is one of those sermon topics that can leave a good number of hearers feeling left out.  Some are too young.  Others would like to be married but aren’t.  Some are married, but wish they weren’t.  Many in our congregation have been parted from their spouses by death. I’ve walked with many of you through that tough transition.  But this is the day for me to talk about marriage.   

Forty years ago today I married Linda Marie Clary.  On July 10, 1982, we stood together at the front of the sanctuary of Gaffney First Baptist Church and made promises we had barely begun to understand.  Though none of our relatives spoke up to object to the marriage, they had more than a few concerns.  Linda had just graduated from Furman and I wasn’t quite finished with seminary.  We were heading out on life’s journey together with no jobs, no permanent place to live, and practically no money.  Linda did have a promise from her dad that if she wanted to leave me and return home for a little while, she could do so, but only once.  If life were a game of Monopoly, that was her “Get Out of Jail Free” card.   I’m delighted to report that she hasn’t played that card yet. 

 I’m giving thanks today for one of my life’s richest blessings.  I believe one of the best ways to give thanks is to share what you’ve learned to help others.  I’m not a marriage expert and we’re not the perfect couple, but the life we’ve shared and my ministry with couples has taught me some truths about marriage, about relationships, and about life.  I want to share some of those with you today.  No matter what your station in life, some of these apply to you.  If you’re married, I hope these will be my anniversary gift to you. 

 Enjoy the Journey

Some of you know what it’s like to go on vacation, but be miserable while preparing for it and impatient while traveling to it.  The key to a great vacation is to enjoy the journey and not just the destination.  Some couples fall into the trap of believing that today must be endured because tomorrow will be wonderful.  Life will be great when ….

         …we both find the jobs we want.

…we get a place of our own. 

…when the children get out of diapers or in school or learn to drive themselves or get out of college. 

…when I can cut back on my workload and enjoy more recreation. 

 And then, all of a sudden, like travelers who realize they’ve passed their exit and see no way to turn around and go back, you wake up to the fact that those were the good days, days you revisit in memories and stories and pictures, but days you can’t relive. 

 Every marriage must work through some challenging times, but don’t think that the time you’ll enjoy your marriage, your family, your life is somewhere down the road.  Enjoy the journey every day.  These are the good days. 

Marriage is a Covenant, Not Just a Commitment

Pastors are famous for splitting hairs over words and their meaning, but this distinction is crucial to making a marriage Christian.  People make commitments to each other every day.  We strive to honor those commitments the best we can.  But most commitments are sustained by some kind of balance of giving and receiving. 

v You give hours of each day to your job and, in return, you are paid for your work. 

         v You subscribe to a television service because they deliver the programming they’ve promised. 

         v You return to a restaurant because the food and service are consistently good. 

         v You coach your child’s sports team because you receive the joy of seeing young people play and grow. 

But if that balance of giving and receiving ends, many commitments end as well.  You quit your job.  You cancel your subscription.  You find another restaurant.  You retire from coaching. 

Some people think of marriage as a commitment, and, in many ways, it is.  A couple marries believing they can give and receive some of life’s most precious gifts with each other.  But Christian marriage goes beyond a commitment.  A Christian marriage is a covenant.  What’s the difference?  If your marriage is a commitment, then you’re in it because of what you receive from your spouse.  You give your best to them because they, in turn, give their best to you.  But if your marriage is a covenant, you give your best, not because of what you receive in return, but because of who you are and what you believe.  Your love is unconditional.  This is the only way a person can love in sickness and in health, in wealth or poverty, in times of closeness and times of distance. 

I’m not saying that one spouse can make a marriage work if the other spouse is unwilling.  But I am saying that one spouse can sustain a marriage through times when the other spouse has nothing to give.  Marriage is our best opportunity to love another person the way Christ loves us. 

Make Your Marriage the Center of Your Family  

In most wedding pictures, no matter who is included, the couple is in the center.  That’s good photography, but it’s also a good rule to live by.  There are two forces that tug at a marriage and can move it out of the center of the family’s life. 

One is your Family of Origin, the people who raised you.  Parents and grandparents release newlyweds to live their own lives, follow their own dreams, that is until the holidays.  Then, the habits and traditions of the past show up like a ghost haunting Ebenezer Scrooge.  “But you’ve always been with us on Christmas Eve.”  “I’ve seen you on every one of your birthdays until now.”  “I know it’s a long drive, but can’t you eat with us at Thanksgiving?”  “When are you going to see, you know, her parents?” 

I tell couples preparing for marriage that they have to decide who their family is going to be.  You never stop loving or, to some degree, accommodating the family who raised you, but you can’t let them and their expectations drive the bus of your marriage or your family.  I tell couples, “From the day you marry, you two are, in the deepest sense, your family.  Everyone else will have to accept that and hopefully understand.” 

The other force that pushes your marriage out of the center of your family life is Children. 

Not long ago, we gathered here to thank God for the life of Janice Brewton.  As we prepared for that service, Jimmy shared a sweet memory he has of his parents.  The children of his family were welcomed, sometimes required, to sit with their parents during the worship service, but they were never allowed to sit between them.  I think that picture illustrates a truth about marriage. 

Even when children join your family, especially when children join your family, you must work to keep your marriage the center of the family.  If you build your life around the children and neglect your relationship, the children will become anxious.  They know if mom and dad’s happiness depends upon their performance.  And, sooner or later, children move away.  Some of them come back, but they usually move away again.  All parents strive to work themselves out of a job, but they don’t want to work themselves out of a marriage because they have no real relationship with each other apart from the children.  Never let your courtship end.  Dress up and go out occasionally.  Let your children see and learn that a marriage is worth the time and attention needed to keep it strong. 

Confess Your Mistakes and Offer Genuine Forgiveness

As you travel this summer, you’ll probably notice that the further you travel, the more your car will fill up with trash: empty water bottles, food wrappers, drive-through receipts, packaging from that item you just couldn’t resist at the Cracker Barrel.  That trash becomes intrusive and annoying.  Don’t you feel better when you take some time to go through the car, gather up all that trashy clutter, and throw it away?  The same is true for relationships.  As we travel through life together, we pick up some junk: thoughtless words, jokes that bring more pain than laughter, emotions from another source unfairly vented or weaponized.  The trash can build up until it intrudes upon the joy of our journey.  We need to know how to gather it up and throw it away. 

My growing up family blessed my life in many ways, but they didn’t teach me a great deal about working through problems by confessing your mistakes and forgiving a person for hurting you.  Looking back as an adult, I can see that our pattern was more like, “Keep your distance for a while, then go on with your life and pretend that bad thing never happened.”  I brought that pattern into my own marriage and my own family.  I didn’t see how much was at stake in confessing and forgiving until we welcomed children into our family.  Then, I saw how a child will innocently assume that any problem or conflict in the family is their fault, unless you tell them and teach them differently.  They motivated me to learn how to say, “Dad snapped at you at the table tonight, not because you were being so bad, but because I had a hard day at work and came home frustrated.  I was wrong to take that out on you.  You didn’t deserve that.  I hope you’ll forgive me.” 

Learning the sacred art of confessing and forgiving demands an entire message of its own, but know that it’s essential to a good marriage and a happy life.  I love catchy sayings and think this one says a mouthful about the character of people who handle their mistakes and the mistakes of others well. 

The first to apologize is the bravest.

The first to forgive is the strongest.

The first to forget is the happiest. 

Don’t Take the Life You Share for Granted

In my closet there is a mirror that hangs on the wall.  On the frame of that mirror is a stick-on name tag that reads “Visitor.”  The only other words on that tag are “Encompass Health Care.”  That tag has been attached to that mirror for a little more than a year-and-a-half.  I received it the day we brought Linda home from the hospital after her fall and brain bleed.  I keep it stuck to the frame of my mirror so I don’t forget what I felt that day.  That Friday, I realized how close we had come to losing the life we’ve shared.  I felt a profound sense of gratitude that she was improving daily and was now at home.  But, as I peeled that sticker off of my shirt to get ready for bed, I remembered how easily we forget.  We forget that every day we share is a gift.  We forget that life is fragile and fleeting.  I keep that sticker on my mirror to remind me not to take the life we share for granted.  I hope you’ll find your own reminder and not lose sight of the priceless gift of sharing life with someone you love. 

Don’t Let the Fear of Bad Times Steal the Joy of Your Good Times

Other than me, Linda doesn’t have many chronic ailments.  But she does have a chronic digestive illness, Crohn’s Disease.  She was diagnosed a few years into our marriage, not long after our first child, Elizabeth, was born.  Crohn’s, in its more extreme forms, can severely compromise a person’s health and impose major limitations on the patient’s lifestyle.  In the early days of Linda’s illness, she suffered practically every day.  Later, as medicines were found that managed her symptoms more effectively, Linda began to enjoy more healthy days.  But rather than meeting these good days with joy and gratitude, I stayed “on guard,” watching for and worrying over any sign or symptom that Linda was relapsing into a Crohn’s attack.  While she appreciated my interest and support, she realized that my attitude was keeping us from enjoying many of the good days her seasons of remission offered.  She challenged me to reframe my understanding of the ups and downs of her health in a way that would allow us to embrace and enjoy the good days as they came.  She said, “Dee, let me be a well person who sometimes gets sick, not a sick person who sometimes is well.”  I saw the deep truth and wisdom in her challenge and made it the standard by which I sought to meet each day.  Choosing this attitude has added a great deal of positivity and hopefulness to our marriage and all aspects of my life.  Seasons of sickness and struggle will come, but we don’t have to allow them to steal away the joy of healthy happy times by dreading the prospect of their arrival.  As Leo Buscaglia wrote, “Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.”

Your life, like mine, will include some wonderful days of joy and blessing and other days of pain and struggle.  But you have a choice to make about how you will understand and experience those ebbs and flows of life.  You can suffer through what you’ve decided is a bad life, with a few good days sprinkled in, or you can share a good life that sometimes includes life’s inevitable storms. The choice you make will decide whether you have a joyful marriage and a happy life. 

Know How to Face the Seasons

We’re blessed to live in a place where we experience all four seasons, although in Columbia summer lasts six months and winter six days.  Imagine that you’d grown up in the Amazon rain forest where the climate never changes.  Then, you’re moved to Columbia, SC.  Right now, you could hardly tell the difference, but when fall comes, you’d see things you’d never seen before.  The days shorten.  The temperature drops.  The leaves on the trees change color and drift to the ground.  The garden stops growing.  If you didn’t know better, you might think the world was ending.  But because you know about the seasons, you realize that after the time of cold and relative darkness, spring will come and new life will appear. 

Every marriage I know anything about goes through seasons.  If you don’t understand that you might think that the first time your feelings falter or you second-guess your commitment, your world is coming to an end.  It’s not.  In some ways that are predictable and others that are mysterious, marriages pass through seasons, including winter.  But when it comes, don’t freak out or bail out because spring can follow winter for those who hang on and bring a new beginning and new life, more beautiful than anything you’ve known before. 

The Traffic is Headed In, Not Out

 

You can guess what time of day it is by the traffic flow in Columbia.  If the eastbound traffic is heavy on I-26, I’m pretty sure it’s morning time and people are driving to work.  If the westbound traffic is congested, the end of the workday has probably arrived and people are hurrying home. 

     The days in which we live are challenging ones for our nation.  Our people are deeply divided on a number of key issues.  Leadership seems stuck and ineffective.  People take to the streets daily to voice their views.  News broadcasts might need to begin with a warning that watching may damage your emotional health. 

     But, despite these sizable challenges, as we approach our nation’s birthday, the day when we celebrate the founding of our country and the multitude of blessings we enjoy as its citizens, all we need to do to remember the greatness of our nation is to look at the traffic flow. Literally millions of the world’s people dream of an opportunity to live in the United States of America and work tirelessly to come here.  The traffic is pretty heavy in the inbound lanes.  And while all of us feel heartache for our nation for one reason or another, I don’t think many people are looking for a way out.  The traffic in the outgoing lane is very light, indeed. 

     So, love your country enough to hurt for its problems, even to weep over them.  But don’t forget that you and I are in the place where most of God’s children long to be.  Take note of the traffic and give thanks for your nation.  

 

Service is the Path to Spiritual Greatness

 

A rabbi had become famous in the small village he served.  Every Sabbath, as he taught the scriptures to his people, he seemed to have a message directly from God.  The word he brought always seemed perfect for the moment.  His people began to talk among themselves, asking how he stayed so in touch with the heart of the Almighty.  They noticed that one day a week, the rabbi would rise early, leave the village, and not return until dark.  He never said a word about where he went.  This led to all kinds of speculation, including the idea that the rabbi made a weekly trip to heaven to speak to God about what his people needed to hear.  One man couldn’t stand the mystery of the rabbi’s day off, so he decided to follow him one day to see where he went.  At a safe distance, ducking behind trees and around the sides of buildings, he followed his rabbi out of the village and down the road.  At one point, the rabbi stopped, took off his clerical robes and put on the clothes of a beggar.  Out of the same bag that held his shabby work clothes, the rabbi drew an ax.  The suspense was building.  The rabbi, now disguised as a beggar, ax in hand, traveled on to the outskirts of a neighboring village.  He stopped when he found some felled trees and spent the morning chopping up the trees into smaller pieces of wood.  He gathered up as much of the wood as he could carry in his arms and walked on to a lowly home where he knocked on the door.  An elderly woman opened the door, greeted him with a big smile, and welcomed him in.  In he went, wood and all.  The man spying on his rabbi waited a distance away, watching to see what might happen next, when he saw smoke begin to rise from the chimney of the woman’s home.  The rabbi had spent his day chopping wood and bringing it to this woman so she could be warm.  But he did it in a way that she would never know who he really was.  The spy returned to his village and everyone clamored to learn where their rabbi went each week.  “Tell us,” someone demanded, “does he go up to heaven each week?”  “No,” the man replied, “he goes even higher.”