Celebrating Love and Friendship

Today is the 26th wedding anniversary of two of the best people in the world. Lance and Linda Richey (Linda is on the outside left, and Lance is on the outside right) were married on April 8th, 1983 in Aviano, Italy. The friendship Sue and I have with these two goes way back to a time when we were all in Europe together; Lance, Sue, and I were stationed at an Air Force base there in Aviano, and Linda was a missionary in a nearby city. Lance was my mentor, friend, and even though he was only two years older than me, he was my "Paul." He spent time with me, prayed with me, talked about the Lord with me, took me on ministry visits, and generally laid the spiritual foundation for much of what God has made of me today. It is no exaggeration to say that his influence in my life was huge. I thank God for him and his continued faithful friendship.

Lance and Linda got engaged, and when he asked me to be his best-man I was honored more than anyone would have believed. Linda, who was close friends with Sue, asked her to be her maid of honor, and there we all were on that April afternoon at the Aviano AB Chapel, witnessing the beginning of something beautiful. A little over a year later, in June of 1984, Lance and Linda were our attendants when we got married in North Dakota.

Over 27 years of friendship have gone by. We have been separated by thousands of miles, but have never been out of touch. Even though we lived on opposite sides of the nation, we have gone through job changes, the highs and lows of raising kids, moves, and good times and bad times together. The phone calls were often way too long, and the rare times we were together were way too short. Now that we live in KY and they live in NC, we can see each other more often but the visits still don't seem to be long enough. When I graduated from seminary, they came out to celebrate with us - what a precious gift! When we are together we laugh, cry, pray, drink coffee, talk about Jesus, eat, and laugh and cry some more. It is beautiful, and in my mind, the definition of what true fellowship and friendship is.

So, congrats to you, Lance and Linda! We pray that we will celebrate many, many, more anniversaries, and that we will enjoy many, many more years of our love and friendship. Ciao!

It Goes By Too Fast...

Last Saturday, Sue and I were going through some old photos from way back. I mean, WAY BACK when we living in Alaska and Oregon. Our intent was to weed out the duplicates, and throw away those pictures that you can't remember why you took them (you know what I mean). Anyway, as I was looking at some of the pictures of Andrew and Rachel when they were little, I realized in a new way what my parents always said to me..."Time goes by so fast."

It seems that just a few years ago we were teaching them how to ride bikes, and reading the Chronicles of Narnia to them. Wasn't it just a while ago that Andrew was earning his first Sparky award at AWANA? Wasn't it just a couple of years ago that Rachel got her first kitten? That hike up to Lookout Mt. - that wasn't that long ago, was it? Where did all that time go? What hit me the hardest was - I'll never have those days again. It makes me wonder if what I said to them was worthwhile, and if what we did together made any difference to them. Will their memories of their growing up years be fond ones, or sad ones?

Andrew and Rachel are both young adults now. Rachel lives and works on her own in Louisville. She has her own apartment and car. We help her a little by letting her come down and do her laundry, but other than that she is fully independent and doing pretty well as far as we can tell. Andrew shares an apartment with some other EKU students in Richmond, KY, and works and goes to college. He's grown into a responsible young man that any mom and dad would be proud of. Both of them are learning that life is not easy, but that God is always good. I pray for them every day and ask the Lord to keep drawing them closer to Himself. Outside of a few fatherly exhortations on the phone, that is about all I can do now.

When I put Josiah to bed that night, it was different. I hugged him and prayed with him and breathed in the smell of his freshly washed hair and just asked the Lord to help me enjoy being his dad. Because pretty soon he'll be out on his own too and all I'll have is pictures to remind me of these days. This time will go by too fast.