My husband’s birthday was yesterday! Our 60th wedding anniversary was a few weeks ago. A lifetime of memories and markers. My parents were married 74 years and Ralph’s parents were married 47 years, so… 60 years did not seem inordinately long and I looked forward to many more years…but God had a better plan.
I met my Prince at Bob Jones University and if you were to ask our college friends, they would be astounded that we are celebrating 60 years! Most did not give us two years! Ralph and I were polar opposites in almost every way. However, we had the one element in marriage that will guarantee longevity…we were both individually committed to “burn out” serving God wherever He led us. My husband’s godly zeal and spiritual leadership in our home was always preeminent and a constant for the last 60 years!
I was blessed with a man who loved me unconditionally and when he said, “For better or worse”…he meant it. We weathered the storms of life with near death experiences more than once and his loyalty to me and to God was unwavering. “Deference living” rather than compromise, was a key to our taking our two wills and finding harmony in God’s will.
Ralph’s name means “bold counselor” and that he was…a man of daring motion and direction. He was once told he was “an afflicter of the comfortable and a comfort to the afflicted”. I could write a book with all his wise one-liners, biblical formulas and scriptural definitions. His capacity to see things in Scripture and interpret them from “inside out” to give a total new look at a familiar verse was uncanny.
Christian missionaries are people whose passion is to make the Lord Jesus known to the whole world. They are completely under the command of King Jesus (my Paratrooper husband would roll out of bed, stand at attention and salute heavenward, committing his day!) and missionaries will go anywhere, under any circumstances, for no pay, with poor living conditions and food, even though no one ever notices. They know their Sovereign Lord is watching every minute and that is the only reward and joy they seek…a true missionary is someone who will risk everything for the sake of the lost of this world. This was my husband.
We have a precious heritage that is a loving reminder of his loyalty to God and his responsibility into the third and fourth generations.
God’s faithfulness…
If we had these 60 years to do over again, we would like to serve more and better, as we were bought with the price of His blood. Rom. 6: 16-18 says, “We were slaves of sin and now are slaves of righteousness.” God called my Ralph home in February, so… it’s just me now…and I work daily on being a better slave!
However impressive or challenging your marriage may be,
It is the genuine proof of the degree of your loyalty to God.
~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America. Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California. My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights.
