He who finds a wife finds what is good
and receives favor from the LORD.
Proverbs 18:22

This is going to be a great week. I am going to go on a holiday with my best friend, my wife. Jill and I have been married now for 27 years. In all these years, I can only remember having 2 one-week holidays alone together with her. Many months ago, we gave in to a good telemarketer and bought one of those fancy resort hotel packages. That, plus using some air miles, will allow us to take this one-week holiday of fun.

This does not mean that Jill and I have not had many great adventures together. And I suppose the word ‘holiday’ can be defined in different ways by different people. In our years together, Jill and I have traveled to Mexico, Dominican Republic, Britain, Papua New Guinea, Australia, East Africa, the main 48 continental states of the US, and every province of Canada except Newfoundland.

In almost all of these cases though, our travel experiences to and through these many countries have been necessary moves due to my schooling or our jobs or the missionary work that we have done either with Teen Missions or Pioneer Bible Translators. So we have definitely seen a lot of the world, but it has mostly been rushing to get from point A to point B.

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Although we have faced many challenges and difficulties over all these years, and the constant traveling seems to move us back to square one again financially, I have few regrets about all that we have done. The stories about how Jill and I met and then years later became married will have to wait until a future article, but there are a few interesting things that I would like to highlight here now.

As any normal guy, I had some experiences of dating other girls when I was a teenager and in my early 20’s. Some relationships I took quite seriously, and some were just for fun. But like the proverb quoted above, I felt that finding a good woman to be my wife and partner in ministry was something to be very careful and sure about. Being born in 1960, my famous saying regarding marriage was, “24 in ’84 and not before.”

And I almost made it. Jill and I did get married in 1984. But due to a number of factors, we got married on my grandmother’s birthday of May 11th, instead of waiting until November when my birthday was. Actually, I seem to recall that we talked mostly about being married in the summer. What I do remember clearly is that when I proposed to Jill, I told her that I would probably never be rich monetarily, but besides my love for her I could give her two things: my name and lots of adventure.

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And considering what little I could promise to Jill, it does say a lot about her by the very fact that she did say yes when I asked her to marry me. We had actually known each other for three years by that time. Jill had even lived at my parents’ home on and off over those three years, and because of the many late night conversations that we had, especially about missionary work, we had grown to become good friends before we dated and then became married.

And it has been like that for all these years. We have always been each other’s best friend, traveling together, talking together, and just doing things together. It seems like we have always been there for each other, and that is why being apart from each other these few months while I am in Dallas helping PBT is not as easy as we are making it look. It reminds me of a cute story about an elderly man whose wife had just passed away.

The elderly man was taking a road test to validate his driver’s license for another year. At the end of the test, the instructor reluctantly failed the man and said to him, “You did very well on most of the road test, but every time you had to turn left at an intersection you failed to look to the right to see if there was any traffic coming.” The elderly man replied to the instructor, “That’s because for over 60 years my wife would say to me, ‘All clear on the right dear.’ ”

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That is kind of how it is for Jill and me. We have now both been married for longer then we were ever single. It is just so comfortable and natural for us to want to talk to each other every day. And so I am very thankful for our modern technology like e-mail and Skype which allows us to be in touch with each other so much.

But there is a deeper level at which we connect. We pray for each other. And this is not just the basic mealtime prayer of “Dear God: please bless Jill and Eric and Glen and our friends and our church, and thank you for the food. Amen.” For me, and I’m sure for Jill too, we value our relationship with God and our relationship with each other much more than this superficial religious prayer.

No, when I pray, I really put some thought into what Jill is doing that day and that week (and I also do this for our boys).  I believe that God is a very loving and personal God, and so I talk to Him about all the things that are most important to me.  Like my family.  Like my wife.  I believe that God really does want the very best for those whom I love.  And so do I.  And why wouldn’t I.  Jill is not only my wife, she is also my very best friend.