Tag Archives: life

A Golden Anniversary

Posted on by under Choices

Journal 2025

I seldom post a current blog, but this milestone deserves to be shouted from the rooftop: We made it!

Fifty years ago today, on August 8, Scott and I vowed to stay married “through sickness and in health, through poverty and wealth, till death do us part.” We’ve had our share of health challenges, and we know what it’s like to pinch pennies as well as to enjoy abundance. But we’re not dead yet.

Our marriage had a rocky start as we came from vastly different cultures, lifestyles, and worldviews. In fact, ten years into our marriage, the pastor who did our pre-marital counseling revealed he wasn’t sure we would make it. Well, we proved him wrong!

My husband prefers bland American food, golf, Trivial Pursuit, hot tea, and talks for a living. I like spicy international cuisine, hiking, word games, coffee, and get paid to listen. He’s a night owl, a pessimist, a clutter bug. I’m a morning person, an optimist, and a minimalist. He grew up in upper-middle-class society, living in Massachusetts, New York, and Vancouver, Canada. I grew up in a mud-brick house (built by my father) in an African village. He’s a spontaneous extrovert, and I, a one-track-minded introvert.

We bonded over our transient childhoods, our mutual love of speech and drama, table games, a few TV shows, traveling, our family of course, but most of all, our faith. I knew at age 5 that I wanted a relationship with the God of my loving missionary parents. Scott met his Savior at age 21, as an adult child of two alcoholic parents. We determined on our wedding day never to threaten divorce when we had a disagreement. (I never said I wouldn’t kill him, though! 😊) Ours is a love story, but also a God-story. How else can I explain that I love this man more today than the day I married him!

Here’s to us, Honey. And, as my daddy used to say, “I wouldn’t trade you for a teddy bear!”

My Path, My Choice

Posted on by under Choices, God

Journal 2005

As I pack my suitcase for another school reunion, I muse on the different paths my classmates’ feet have trod. Some of us stumble across rocky surfaces, trying to avoid sprained ankles. I watch others schlepping through oozing, muddy slime. Some classmates have only known soft and spongy lichen between their toes while some feet skate across glass-smooth ground. The footsteps we take are part our choice and part our circumstances. When we approach a mud puddle, for example, we can choose to skirt it (if it’s not too wide), lay down planks, slog through it, or wait till it dries up.

But always, we live with our choices and the circumstances God puts in our path. Fortunately, He can redeem those situations and choices (if we let Him). He can clean off the mud, dry our feet, and mend the sprain or broken toe. And a cottage with a cozy fireplace waits for us at the end of the journey.

A 2022 Update. I plan to attend our 50th year graduation class reunion in May and our all-boarding-schools reunion in July. I go, not because I’m curious about the different paths we’ve taken, but because we started this journey together, and I want to walk together the rest of the way.

A Slice of Life

Posted on by under Choices

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It’s fascinating to me what details we include in peoples’ obituaries to summarize their lives. Most often we include a list of their relatives, but then we talk about what character traits they were known for or what accomplishments they achieved. Fifty, seventy, or ninety years of living are reduced to three to five paragraphs.

Joshua 15:16-19 records an interesting little glimpse into one obscure name—a tiny slice of one man’s life.

The characters in this story:

Caleb, the godly spy

Caleb’s daughter Aksah

Caleb’s nephew Othniel

The Plot: Caleb promises his daughter Aksah to the man who conquers the city of Kiriath-Sepher.

Okay, so we have an 85-year-old man who’s still strong and able to conquer new territory, who decides to use his daughter as a prize. It’s hard to imagine in our culture today, but arranged marriages were the norm at that time. But using her as a prize? I suppose Caleb wanted to find a brave go-getter for her, a conquering hero, and Aksah willingly goes along with the scheme.

So who wins the prize? Caleb’s nephew Othniel. We know nothing more about him except that he is forever remembered as being the man brave enough to fight for the hand of a nobleman’s daughter.

If someone chose to record for all eternity just one event in my life, for what would I be remembered? What one story will be told at my funeral?