Lessons Learned in 1979

I was listening to a Christmas song playing on my entertainment system this morning that sent me on a journey back into Piper’s and my history… all the way to the summer of 1979 and through the spring of 1980.  The song was performed by a husband and wife Southern Gospel team and recalled special Christmas moments shared by a loving couple.  Many of the examples used to describe the special times rang a bell as they would also describe some of the feelings and events that Piper and I shared… especially in the five years before we started our family. 

I couldn’t tell you why my memory honed in on that particular time in our lives, but it centered around the six to nine months when we had rented a home from a family in our Baptist congregation that had moved out of state.  It was a beautiful, big, four-bedroom home that backed up to a creek.  The family wasn’t sure how long that they would be gone, so they had decided to keep the house and rent a portion of it to us… and in doing so, left a lot of their furniture behind.

The huge living room had a retracting curtain that could separate the area into two rooms, with each section sharing half of the centrally positioned fireplace!  So, Piper and I basically rented the kitchen, dining area, half of the living room, the master bedroom and one other bedroom where we stored all of our extra stuff… which wasn’t much at that 4-year point in our marriage.

It was a great house with one major problem for us… It was so big that the gas and electric bill was crazy high.  Piper was working at Hewlett Packard at the time, while I was building my fledgling Photography business and receiving a small salary for my Youth Minister position at the church.  We didn’t have many expenses and if we were very frugal with heating of the house, we did okay.  We kept all the bedroom doors closed which meant that while the front area of the house was somewhat comfortable with the addition of a sweater for both of us… the master bedroom located down the long dark hallway, at the opposite end of the house was usually freezing!

It took a dedicated effort… but as long as we stayed diligent with the thermostat, turned off nonessential lights in the house… and in particular, limited the usage of the heat lamp in the ceiling just outside the walk-in shower which REALLY helped to dispel the icicles that would attempt to form when we stepped out of the hot shower… we made it through the one and only winter we lived there. 

When Piper became pregnant with our first child and my parent’s made an offer to us to rent my recently deceased grandmother’s home, we decided to make the move.   And we quickly discovered that my grandmother’s little two-bedroom house, in a quiet and quaint neighborhood in the Montgomery Village area of our town… was perfect for our growing family!

After reminiscing with those memories of pleasant times past, I was reminded of an area of scripture where the Apostle Paul was talking mainly about God’s plan for salvation… but also could be understood as a conversation about God’s continuing plan for each of our lives on this earth.

Ephesians 1:10-12 tells us,

“He (God) planned to bring all of (our) history to its goal in Christ. Then Christ would be the head of everything in heaven and on earth.  God also decided ahead of time to choose us through Christ according to His plan, which makes everything work the way He intends.   He planned all of this so that we who had already focused our EXPECTATIONS on Christ would praise Him and give Him glory.” 

Living in that big house taught Piper and I a few things that we kept with us throughout our lives.  We learned that if we made a plan and stayed diligent with it, that it would help us to meet our tiny budget… and NOT be a major donor to the profits of The Pacific Gas and Electric Company!  (Ah… I can still hear my dad yelling out to us kids, “Turn out the lights… we don’t own stock in PG&E!  --- sound familiar to anyone else?)

Paul also talks to us about being successful in the plans that God has made for each of us.  While Piper and I had to stay focused on our goal and be responsible for our own actions… Paul is instructing us… when following God’s plans for our lives… to keep our EXPECTATIONS focused on Christ and be diligent in fulfilling our personal responsibilities to follow through on whatever He is telling us to do!

It is interesting for me to have seen how those lessons learned in the early foundational years of our marriage... way back in 1979... were the very ones that carried us through the most difficult of times in the latter years of our marriage before Piper transitioned to heaven.  I’ve told in past blog posts of some of the “suggestions” or “advice” or just plain persecution that I received as Piper went through the declining stages of Ahzeimers…

BUT… the good news for us… was that by that time in our marriage we were way beyond listening to any other opinion or suggestion or advice that was in any way, shape or form different than that of God’s Word.  Our EXPECTATIONS were focused on Christ… and it was those EXPECTATIONS that carried us through and brought Piper into the place where she is now

“Holy, Happy and PERFECT in the presence of God.”  

                                                  (Ephesians 1:4/Psalms 16:11 – God’s Word ©)          

Do you know where the focus of your EXPECTATION is when it comes to the plans of God for you and your life?

Have a great weekend, and as you do... Keep EXPECTING God's best in your life!