Investing in Your Future

What’s the most important investment you can make for your future–besides ensuring your destiny in Heaven?  I would contend that it’s having healthy, loving relationships–whether they’re with family members, friends, a date, or with your spouse.

For those married, picture one day sitting by the fire on a blizzardy February night, cuddling next to the man who would trudge through ten-foot snowbanks in his bare feet to purchase your favorite chocolate bar because you have a craving–and he loves you more than watching the super bowl. Now, that’s love!

But how does that level of love happen? 

Not by accident. It happens by investing time and love into the people you want to keep in your life (Philippians 2:4)

Something sparked when my hand touched the palm of our new pastor as he greeted me. The moment was brief, like a flash of lightning. I pulled back my hand and walked away while a voice in my head said, “He’s the one.” Absurd. Pastor Curt had made his position clear—he would never marry anyone from his church—and I would not attempt to sway him from that resolve.

Several weeks later, my mother invited him to join us for lunch, and he readily accepted. Constant conversation and laughter floated around our dinner table. After that first meal, he became a regular fixture on Sundays at our home. Pastor Curt and I often spent time chatting or competing in a game of Scrabble as soon as the dishes were cleared away, but several months down the road, my sister informed me he had been writing to a young lady in his father’s church. She learned this from her husband, the youth pastor. My heart broke a little. Despite my best intentions, I had begun falling in love with him. I determined more than ever to see him only as a friend.

Over the Christmas holidays, he went home to visit his family and to see the young lady with whom he’d been writing. When he returned in January, he regularly joined us on Sundays again. Everything continued as before—a sweet and fun friendship. If only my heart would cooperate. Six weeks later, Pastor Curt asked me to join him at a diner for lunch. He offered to pick me up at work. I agreed, but was it a date? I doubted it. He probably needed a listening ear. A couple of days later, he asked if I would join him for dinner that Friday evening. My heart raced. Definitely a date this time. He arrived dressed up and held out a single rose. A month later, in March, we were engaged to be married and spoke our vows in September. I soon understood that friendship is the best foundation on which to build a marriage. Nurturing that friendship and valuing it more highly than any other relationship helped us build a strong, fulfilled, and happy home that no trial could destroy.

I was married to this handsome, fun-loving, caring, and honorable man for over thirty-two years when he was diagnosed with a very rare stage 4 bone cancer in July 2020. Twelve days after celebrating our thirty-third wedding anniversary on September 12, 2020, I stood beside Curt’s hospital bed as he took his last breath. For thirty-three years, I experienced love, devotion, and intimate friendship with my husband that will last into eternity. I can hardly wait for our reunion one day.

Let me encourage anyone contemplating marriage or already married, to work on having a friendship with your spouse. Romance, passion, caring, joyous laughter, and having a spouse who talks to you and listens, all from being a friend to your partner first. If your friendship isn’t strong, you will only feel burdened and used. But if you care for each other out of a deep abiding friendship, you will serve because you love.