I came to know the Lord when I was 26. At 29, I felt that I still had not met the person I could/should marry. And I realized that I often used too much time and energy looking for that right person. So I felt I needed for the Lord to find a wife for me, bring us together, and ‘hit me over the head’ and make it clear to me (and her!).

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Barb and I first met at a Jubilee Conference in Pittsburgh. She had grown up in Pittsburgh but was working as a nurse at one of the hospitals in Erie. I was a campus minister with the CCO, in a Christian ministry to local college students through a church in Erie. At the Jubilee Conference she happened to meet two workers at a different Erie hospital who were in the Christian fellowship group I co-led. So Barb began to get acquainted with me and others in our group.

 

I learned that Barb lived very close to where my retired father lived. My mother had died many years earlier and he lived alone. Barb kindly volunteered to occasionally visit him. She had not met him, so we arranged that one Sunday after the church service I would take her to meet him. But that morning I learned that he had gone for the day to the countryside of Erie County, to visit my brother Bob and his family. So suddenly I was introducing Barb to almost my whole family, though we were not even dating! When we came back to Erie we decided to go biking together after a special afternoon program at the church which, as a staff member, I needed to attend. It ended up being a 25-mile bike ride around the peninsula of land that forms Erie’s harbor. On that bike ride I began to see Barb differently, and even, while resting on the beach at one point, I asked if I could kiss her, and she allowed me.    

 

That evening, at the end of that long day together, as I was leaving her I felt I needed to be totally honest with her about the feelings which were developing in me. So I told her, “I don’t mean to put pressure on you, but I think maybe the Lord means for us to be married someday.”

 

The next day I learned from her that, before that day together, she had a dream that she and I were together getting on a plane and were waving good-bye to others. So she was somewhat prepared for my declaration of our possible marriage that night.

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As I write this we have now been married 38 years, and we have been wonderfully blessed to share life and walk with the Lord together for so long.

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