Today we are in Dubai. We are on a journey to Europe, and then on to the UK where we are looking forward to catching up with Simon and Julie.
Today is 6th May. Fifty three years ago today we began another incredible, and altogether Unexpected Journey.
Fifty three years ago today, I married the most wonderful woman I know.
An Unexpected Romance
I first saw Eileen when she and her school friend, Karen, walked into our Youth Fellowship at the church in Cronulla in early 1968. A month later they both attended the Annual Fellowship Camp and professed faith in Christ.
Romance didn’t blossom for another two years.
However, in October 1968 the Fellowship went ice skating at Prince Alfred Park, in Sydney. There were only eight of us, four boys and four girls. Afterward, waiting for the train at the station, we noticed a photo booth – one of those where for, back then, maybe $1 you got four small portrait shots. Eight of us, so we went in two by two, to get one of the shots for each two. The first two or so couples were already a “couple”, so they went in first. Eileen and I were unattached, so were left over as the last two to go in – I still have the first photo of the two of us together!
In early 1970, I had just turned 21 and, as a trainee engineer with the Department of Main Roads, I was assigned to Murwillumbah. By this time I was becoming interested in getting to know Eileen better; but I was too nervous to tell her to her face. But from 1,000 kms away I felt safer. So while I was writing to many different ones in the Youth Fellowship back home in Cronulla, I also wrote to Eileen, tentatively sounding her out in a more interested, but ambiguous kind of way, hoping she might respond with more interest than others.
She wrote back. But with more interest than others?? She wrote, “Dear Ken”… but everyone wrote “Dear” back then (now sadly it’s only “Hi”). But maybe her “Dear” meant more than “Hi”… Did it? Didn’t it? (It didn’t 😔).
Nonetheless, despite that tortuous beginning, once I returned home we did start to see more of each other. I was more than interested.
[Footnote: In more recent years I observed another young man employ a similar ambiguous M.I. in seeking to get the attention of my granddaughter. It is, I imagine, a universal male dilemma how to express more than interest in a young woman who is a friend, in a vague enough way so that you don’t lose face if the interest is not reciprocated.
P.S. Now four years married that happy couple are about to make Eileen and me great-grandparents. Meanwhile, another grandson and his wife are also about to join MEGA: “Make Eileen&Ken Great-grandparents Again” 😊]
An Unexpected Hiccup
We were sitting in the car at Mt York in the Blue Mountains. By now we had been going out together for a few months.
We were watching the sun set over the Western Plains. A propitious moment!
I turned to Eileen and bared my soul: “I love you.”
I thought it seemed like a good idea at the time.
She didn’t. She looked at me, looking kinda alarmed; then said: “No, you couldn’t possibly know that, not so soon.” (Admittedly we were both young: I was 21, she 17).
I thought it best, at the time, just to agree with her. So I said, “Yes, you are right, I couldn’t know yet’” But deep down I thought I did. Though I was afraid to lose her.
And true, neither of us could have known anything of the depth of love we now know, more than half a century later.
However, and thankfully, I didn’t lose my girl. Love did blossom into a wonderful relationship. We were engaged 18 months later.
Then, 53 years ago on 6th May, 1972, we were married.
An Unexpected Course Change
Before we were married, after graduation, I was sent by the DMR to work on the Western Freeway; then being posted as Works Engineer with the Department in Nowra. So when we were married we settled into life there on the South Coast of NSW.
At first we commuted two hours every second Lord’s day to our church in Sutherland; then every week, one hour to a church plant that commenced in Wollongong. To stay in the area and help with the church plant (before the DMR moved me again), I took a position as an engineer with Shoalhaven Shire Council.
During this time, our first daughter, Karen was born.
About the same time, and with counsel from trusted friends around me, I began to seriously consider a call to the ministry and commenced studies to that end. But, only half way through my studies I received a call from the emerging church in Wollongong.
I was set apart in October 1975: part time with the church in Wollongong, and part time as co-pastor in Sutherland. However, less than a year later the church in Wollongong decided they could now support me full-time and proceeded to do so.
In all these changes of location, jobs and calling, Eileen was by my side, stood by me and steadfastly supported me through it all; including our nine happy years of ministry in Wollongong.
There, two more daughters, Julie and Alison, and a son, Simon, were born. Each of our children has been a wonderful blessing, each gifted in a unique way by the Lord.
None at the time was unexpected.
Only a miscarriage in between was.
An Unexpected Country Change
In 1984 our church’s missionary in Kenya was about to return home and our church was looking to replace him. Two factors led me to consider the call: first, a burden for the work in Kenya after a visit there the year before; and second, an increasing sense that in my ministry in Wollongong I had gone as far as I could.
I will always admire Eileen for being prepared to consider this move as she was not the one being called (hence with no sense of call driving her), but only as one married to the one with the sense of call. She had never contemplated a move like this when she married me (neither had I!). But in faith she committed to the work with me despite the challenges that faced us, especially with four young children. (Our youngest ended up having his first three birthdays in Kenya.)
And challenges there were.
Within weeks of arriving our two youngest, one after the other, got extremely sick with malaria and wasted away to the point that we were ready to pack up and come home – till they started to recover. There was continual uncertainty as to whether our residency would be approved. The car we drove often broke down: one time in the middle of nowhere in the Rift Valley, and I had to leave the family to make my way to the nearest town to get help.
But there were also many lovely family times shared together.
And through it all, Eileen was there by my side.
An Unexpected Interlude
We had originally anticipated being in Kenya for up to eight years, by which time our eldest would be finishing high school.
But the Lord had other plans. We were only allowed to stay in Kenya as long as the church there was registered – a process full of bureaucratic twists and turns that had been ongoing for some years. But after registration was rejected for a fifth, and final, time we were officially told to leave.
So, after less than three years there we were back to Australia.
For another three years we were “on hold” as, at the time of our return, all our local churches had pastors. While waiting I wrote up the grammar of the language of those we had worked with; then, after six months took a job as a builder’s labourer. The work was pleasant, much of it out doors, and I could leave it behind when I went home each day. There then followed two years in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Wollongong University.
An Unexpected Call
Then came an unexpected call from a church in Brisbane and our family moved there.
The first years in Brisbane were challenging as the church had been through a split and many in the congregation were reserved, waiting to see how things would turn out before opening up. Once more, I would’ve found these years very difficult if Eileen had not been by my side as we went through it together.
Thankfully, after a few years things settled down and folk began to relax.
An Unexpected Trial and Self Discovery
In the 27th year of our marriage, exactly half way through our present journey, that journey took another unexpected turn: Eileen was diagnosed with cancer, Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She was in treatment, in and out of hospital for most of that year. It was a watershed year for both of us.
For Eileen it was a year when she discovered she was much stronger in the Lord than she anticipated as she grew spiritually and learnt to rest in Him.
For me it was a year when I discovered how weak I was spiritually: the sinfulness of my heart was exposed in not being empathetic in her fears and not showing as much support as I should have; instead I discovered how selfish I am.
Learning from Failure:
Thomas Manton reminds us that we are to learn from temptation. He observed that the Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness was, appropriately, “immediately before He entered upon His prophetical office”.
He comments that only “experience of temptations fits for the ministry, as Christ’s temptations prepared Him to set a-foot the kingdom of God, for the recovery of poor souls out of their bondage into the liberty of the children of God.” He deduces from this: “Christ also would show us that ministers should not only be men of science [i.e. knowledge], but of experience.” Cf Heb 4:15
Experience, not only of temptation, but of my failure in the face of temptation taught me:
- To value highly the precious gift God has given me in my wife while we still have each other.
- To learn to empathise with her; and also with those I was a pastor to who were facing temptation, even where they had failed for a time.
- To be cured for all time, never again to doubt that I am a sinner without any righteousness of my own, and completely dependent upon the shed blood and broken body of my Saviour for salvation.
In His great mercy, God has now given us as many years together since that time as before.
A Not Entirely Unexpected “Retirement”
After 40 years in the ministry, 26 of those in the church in Brisbane (now by God’s grace, at peace and prospering) I retired.
That first year after my retirement was a blessed year. The church was at peace and flourishing. We were so thankful to be part of a congregation where everyone was now pulling together and exercising their gifts energetically to fill the gaps.
Sadly, the following years were not as peaceful; but that is another story.
An Unexpected Pandemic and Move
In mid 2021 Eileen’s father was dying and we went to be with him in Sydney, thankfully able to be there two days before he died. See here.
The day he died Queensland locked down: we couldn’t return home for six months. See here.
But those six months gave us time to reflect on where to spend our latter years.
As a result, we moved to Coolangatta.
Life has been an Unexpected Journey, full of Unexpected Twists and Turns.
“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit’; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.’”
. – James 4:13-15
The Wife of My Youth
“Two are better than one,
Because they have a good reward for their labour.
For if they fall, one will lift up his companion…
If two lie down together, they will keep warm…
Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.”
. – Eccl 4:9–12
I am eternally grateful for Eileen, “the wife of my youth” who is “my companion and my wife by covenant” (Mal 3:14). I keep hearing the words of Linus Larrabee that he spoke to his brother ringing in my ears: “You don’t deserve her, but she appears to love you”; and David’s reply, “Yeah, see, doesn’t that worry you a little bit – I mean, about her mental health?”
She is the greatest earthly gift the Lord has given me on this Unexpected Journey. As I noted in a recent post I cannot imagine how hard it would have been to travel this journey with a wife with whom I could not share our faith in Christ.
I look back and am thankful for so much the Lord has given us both in each other. I also think of so much that I would do differently, better: mistakes and sins I could have avoided.
Darryl Dash, when 23 years old and newly engaged, was told by a man in his 50s, “You think you’re in love now, but you really don’t know what love is. Wait until you’ve been married 30 years, then you will begin to understand what love is.”
Darryl further comments:
“Being young and in love is amazing, but I didn’t mind being told that it only gets better. He was right, by the way… There are joys in marriage that get better and deeper the more decades you spend together…
“Youth has many advantages, like strength and energy. Getting older has some drawbacks, but it has its perks too. Having young children is great, but so is having older children and grandkids…
“Looking back, there are many things I enjoy now that are the fruit of years of work. In a culture that values youth, I can honestly say there are many ways in which I would never want to go back… There are old guy benefits that should never be underestimated by the young. Many people see aging negatively, but there’s beauty in loving the same woman for decades and enjoying the joy brought by grown children and their children…
“There are joys in walking with God for a long time, and finding that the more you know him, the more beautiful he appears…
“I’ve now been married 34 years, and I wouldn’t trade the marriage I have now for the one I had in the early years.”
Amen. Wait till you are married 53 years – it is even better.
Better still, best of all, at the end of this Journey is beyond expectation:
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
. – 1 Cor 2:9
Until then:
When I fear my faith will fail
Christ will hold me fast
When the tempter would prevail
He will hold me fast
I could never keep my hold
Through life’s fearful path
For my love is often cold
He must hold me fast.
. – Ruth Habershon