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26. A New Date
The engagement of Linda and myself was more than a year in length. Something like four or close to five hundred days. That was a lot of days for the pressures from within and the tensions they create to bring us to a dangerously explosive situation that neither of us wanted. The Scriptures clearly teach that there is one relationship in life that is meant to be explored deeply and creatively, but only in marriage.
“Marriage is honorable and the bed undefiled,” the writer of Hebrews states. “Flee youthful lusts,” the Apostle Paul declares. “Let not sexual immorality be named among you,” Paul states in another place. “Beware, your sin will find you out,” the Word says.
I remember that at my church in Lincoln Park there was a young couple, college-age, who were enduring a long engagement. It got to be too much for them. They yielded to the passions within and then felt much guilt and shame. They married, quickly. They confessed their sin to the church, which I believe is an honorable thing to do. God forgave them. The people forgave them. But they began their marriage with sorrow instead of with joy.
When Linda returned to Grand Rapids and to school in the fall of 1967, the heat was turned up and the pressures began to build. There we were, young and in love, surrounded by a world that said “Go ahead, enjoy yourselves, it doesn’t matter,” but both of us committed to a Book that said, “Be careful, be pure, don’t act like a man and wife until you are man and wife.” This caused a great tension in our relationship.
I am certain we were not the first, nor the last Christian couple to face this problem. God has designed us so our natural desires and instincts are strongest in our youth. That is apparently when He wants us to marry and start raising families.
How does a couple, engaged and nearing their wedding day, remain pure in order to honor and obey the Lord? Can they spend a lot of time together alone and not be tempted? Can they resist the temptations to get closer physically as their wedding date approaches? And what if their wedding day is still nine months away, as ours was in September of that year. Could we resist? Could we remain pure?
Some might argue that on a Christian college campus opportunities to disobey God’s commands for purity are slim. After all, a couple there is surrounded by Christian friends and teachers, and an atmosphere of obedience to the Scriptures. People who argue this way are ignorant of the power of passion and sin. Young Christian couples on such campuses do find ways to yield to the pressures of sin within them.
Some might argue that that is one of the foolish things about Christianity. It teaches there is a loving God Who freely endowed each of us with the equipment and the desire necessary for intimate physical expressions, then forbids those with the strongest desires to do what comes naturally. People who argue this way are ignorant of the holiness of God and the purity He desires His people to have and the importance of reserving intimacy for marriage.
The answer, ultimately, was that it was too risky to try to survive the struggle for nine more months. The temptations were too strong, our desires too intense, our opportunities too frequent and our weaknesses too plentiful. We had talked during the summer about “drawing a new line,” in reference to our physical relationship. We would go back a few steps and not proceed as quickly or as intensely into our physical relationship.
A logical step was to move our wedding day closer, to have fewer months to fight the forces that would no longer have to be fought after we were married.
“How long would it take you and your Mom to plan a wedding?” I asked Linda one evening in September. She thought a moment.
“About three months,” she said.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s move our wedding date from June 7 to December 28.”
“December 28?” she said. “Why December 28?”
“School’s out,” I said. “And it is the only Saturday we have until June 7. It is December 28 or it is June 7. Do you want to wait until June 7?”
“No,” she said.
We decided we would pray about it for several days, then each would write the answer we felt the Lord had given us on a piece of paper, exchange them, and see what the Lord had revealed to us. The question: should we move the date from June 7 to December 28. The slips of paper, we believed, would either both say, “Yes,” or both say, “No.” We did not believe for a moment that the answers would be different.
We sat in my car at one of our spots one afternoon and prayed. “Lord, show us what You want us to do. We do not want to make any mistakes as we begin our lives together. Reveal the wedding date to us that You want us to have.” Then we wrote our answers on slips of paper and exchanged them. I think every clock in the world stopped for a few moments right then.
Today, with modern means of research such as the Internet available to research things, I have not been able to find anything about time standing still on that Saturday afternoon in September of 1968. There is no record anywhere that such a thing happened. The Bible says time did stand still once, and even went back several degrees on the sundial. But that was not in September of 1968.
As it turned out, there was no need for clocks to stop. Both slips of paper bore the same three-letter word. So we went to work, or I should say Linda’s Mom and Linda went to work. Plans were made, and we cut six months from our engagement.
There was a downside. By the end of the semester in December, Linda would finish the first quarter of her junior year of college. Would our wedding plans change her college plans? Would she be able to graduate? We did not know. We had planned a honeymoon trip to Michigan’s upper peninsula following our June 7 wedding. Neither one of us really wanted to go to the upper peninsula in late December. It would be too cold and too snowy, and many of the tourist services would be non-existent in December. Would our families be agreeable? They were. Would our friends understand? They did. Would we be ready financially? It turned out we would seldom be ready financially for anything important we did.
I took this picture of Linda early in 1968 when she was sitting at her reception desk in the Administration Building of what was then Grand Rapids Baptist College and Seminary.
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In the meantime, routine set in and helped relieve the pressures some. It was back to classes all morning and working at the bank all afternoon and spending time with Linda in the evening, except when she had to work at the reception desk, which was frequent. There were days we saw each other only for a few moments.
Herkner’s was, and still is, a large jewelry store in downtown Grand Rapids. It had been there since1867, and it was grandly furnished and decorated befitting a store of such a reputation and distinguished history. Thick carpets and lots of mahogany and beveled glass with bright lights focused on fantastic pieces of jewelry set against dark blue, black or purple velvet. Into this elaborate and glamorous setting strolled a seminarian who worked part-time as a bank messenger, and a college student who worked part-time answering the school’s phones. Our objective: a diamond engagement ring for Linda, and wedding rings for each of us.
Everything looked brilliant, and expensive. A kindly gentleman guided us through the selection process. We explained our financial situation. He said plans were available so I could purchase the ring on the instalment plan. That was the only way it was going to happen given my shaky economic status.Money, or the lack of it, is such a nuisance! I wanted to get Linda the best. I wanted to say, “Money is no object!” But it was. And Linda kept her sites within the budget. She selected a diamond and setting that flashed brilliantly in the focused lighting of the store, but which I could reasonably pay off. I wanted to give it to her right then. But that could not be done. Even if I had cash to pay for it, the stone still had to be set in the ring we had selected.
Katie was a tall, attractive Christian girl who worked with me at the bank, in the mortgage department. I had even thought about asking her out before I met Linda, but I never did.
But she was a good friend. We had discussed Christian issues a time or two at breaks. Being the only two evangelical Christians in the department had given us something in common to share when we could. She had eagerly followed my growing relationship with Linda and was happy for us. She also had found a boyfriend, and I was happy for her and for them. One day at break she asked me, “When are you going to give Linda her ring?”
“Soon, I hope,” I answered.
“What do you mean, soon?” she asked.
“Well, I have to pay Herkner’s the full amount before I can get the ring, and I don’t have the full amount yet. I hope to have it soon.”
“I’ll loan it to you,” she said.
“Well, I can’t let you do that, Katie. I don’t know when I would be able to pay it back. Thanks, but I don’t want you to do that.”
“How much?” she said.
“Well, I--”
“How much?”
And that’s how I got the ring from Herkners, and came to owe Katie the price of the ring, at least the part I had not already paid to Herkners. Although I paid Katie back more than forty years ago, I still feel a debt to her. She was very kind to do what she did.
It was October 14, a Monday. Tim and I had done a number of slide presentations for various ministries. We put the pictures together with music and narration and presented them at churches for the organization. We had a presentation to make on Tuesday night, October 15. Tim’s wife, Connie, would be going along, and I invited Linda to go along, too. But I told her it was Monday night, not Tuesday night. I told Linda I would pick her up after supper. She was ready and we drove off campus.
I drove to the northeast section of Grand Rapids, in the general direction of the church. But near John Ball Park, I pretended to be lost. Many times in our married life, I actually have been lost, but that night I pretended I had lost my way to the church. When we came to a convenient turn-off that went into the park, I turned in and parked the car. I turned on the overhead light.
“Honey, I think there is a map in the glove compartment. Would you look inside and see if it is there?” She opened the door. Inside was a small box with a ribbon. “What’s this?” she said.
“I don’t know,” I lied. “Open it and see.”
She pulled the ribbon from the box and carefully opened the lid. Even in the faint light from the overhead lamp, the object inside glowed and reflected the light that fell on it.
“Let’s make it official,” I said. “Linda,” I took the ring and prepared to place it on her finger, “will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she said.
Well, she better have said yes. After all, she had picked out the ring and she and her mother were planning the wedding.
We spent the evening together, but I don’t remember where we went. The ring glowed and reflected light wherever we went. And when I took her back to campus to the apartment she shared with three other girls, I am sure the four walls of that apartment were the witnesses of much giggling, ooing and awing as the diamond continued to sparkle its way around the room to the delight of eight female eyes.
The problem that had worked its way into our relationship was being solved in the best way possible. In a little more than two and a half months, we would be man and wife. It would please us, and it would please the Lord. It might even please Katie whose loan helped to make it possible.
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Copyright © 2009, Thomas M. Parsons, All Rights Reserved. - 27
