Just Long Enough - The Story of an Improbable Marriage

Growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, I was never forced to go to church. My dad never went and, since my mom didn’t drive, she hitched a ride with her cousin when she wanted to go. Sometimes I went with her. I don’t really remember anything except having a role in a Sunday School Christmas play.

As I got older, I would occasionally attend church with friends. The one visit that stands out the most was when the Sunday School teacher told us how he thought interracial marriage was frowned on by God. He said something about birds of a feather flocking together. I remember thinking that had he picked dogs for his example, a totally different conclusion would have been reached. I also wondered why God would care about who someone married since he had created us all. “But,” I thought, “I’m just a kid and he is an adult, so what do I know?”

Nothing I ever heard during my infrequent visits to church convinced me that I was a sinner in need of salvation. In fact, by the time I had reached college age, I was a deist. I believed that God existed and created the Universe, but I didn’t believe in any of the Gods of the world’s religions.

As a teenager, I was very shy. Well, as least when it came to dating girls. I had no problem being around a girl as a friend, but when it came to asking someone on a date, I froze. During my high school years, I asked exactly one girl on a date. She was someone I had known since first grade, but she turned me down. I thought perhaps I had broken the ice and asking for a date would come easier. Wrong! It didn’t help anything. Still, I had quite a few friends and was somewhat outgoing in high school. I didn’t play sports or anything, but I was in the Honor Society and the Photography Club. A group of friends and I even put together a performance for the Senior Talent Show where we sang one of my original comical songs. It was a hoot and a huge success!

During my high school years, I had crushes on several girls, but the biggest one occurred my senior year. That was when I got to know a girl by the name of Anita Zettler. I had seen her around school before, but we did not have any classes together until our senior year. I fell pretty hard for her, but still couldn’t get past the fear of dating. When prom time came, I really wanted to ask her to go with me, but I kept delaying, delaying, and delaying until I heard that someone else had asked her, and she had accepted. I was both disappointed and relieved, if you know what I mean.

Shortly after high school graduation, I finally got up the courage to call Anita. We talked for over an hour. As I enjoyed our conversation, I was secretly building up to asking her out. But before my courage reached a sufficient level, a friend knocked on the door. I let him in, and since I wasn’t about to ask for a date while my friend was listening to my every word, I ended the phone call.

So that was that. Anita went away to college while I stayed at home to attend college. I just assumed I would never see her again, so I tried to push her out of my mind and get on with my life.

Throughout college, I concentrated on my studies. There weren’t many girls in engineering school, so it was easier to avoid crushes and the agony of knowing I didn’t have the courage to ask anyone out. Also, on the religious front, I was still the same old deist.

As I was nearing the end of my college days, I was waiting for the time to move to Alabama to start my career as an engineer. I was interested in photography and astronomy, so I would sit up late reading magazines on these topics. Oftentimes I would get caught up on my magazine reading, so decided I would read the Bible from the beginning. I just wanted to see what it said; I was not on a spiritual quest. I made it through 1 Kings when it was time to move. With the full-time job, my Bible reading stopped.

In those early years at work, I was in a carpool. Two of the people in the carpool, one man and one woman, were members of the Church of Christ. At some point the woman asked me if I would like to attend church with her and one of her best friends. It turned out I recognized her friend as someone who worked at a convenience store across the street from my apartment. I wasn’t terribly interested in attending church, but I thought I’d give it a go. It turned out I really enjoyed it.

One of the things that really impressed me was how the members seemed to want to truly understand what the Bible taught and live by it. I began attending the church regularly. One Sunday my friends were out of town. I was disappointed that I couldn’t go to church, but then I realized I could attend on my own. At the end of the service, I was invited to Sunday dinner at the home of a chiropractor and his family. I accepted. I had no clue that in a few years, that man would become MY chiropractor. I had a great meal and fun fellowship.

I began studying the Bible with a man named Jim Massey. He was a teacher at the local Bible college (which was also the location of the church I was attending) as well as a preacher and an evangelist. After several weeks of study and prayer, I made the decision to become a Christian and join the church. That was in July 1980 when I was 25 years old.

I quickly got involved in the evangelistic activities of the church. One Saturday, we were meeting at the church to plan a door knocking excursion. A beautiful young girl who was attending the Bible college was there. We had met before, but I was still surprised when she came over and sat next to me. Since we were going out by twos, we agreed to be partners. I still remember her being somewhat starstruck when a well-known basketball player in our city answered the door while we were canvassing an apartment complex. Shortly afterwards we were circling around the backside of the apartment building when we came upon a pretty young girl sunbathing in a skimpy bikini. I looked at my companion and said, “Don’t worry. I’ll handle this one.” She responded, “I bet you will.” Interestingly, when we told the bikini-clad girl who we were, she responded that she was raised in the Church of Christ. We talked a bit, gave her our literature, and walked on.

Becoming a Christian changed me in several ways. One was how I viewed myself relative to others. No longer did I view myself as inferior when it came to dating. I decided that if I wanted to ask someone out, I would. If she rejected me, I was still valuable in the eyes of God. I liked this young college student, so I asked her out, and she said yes! I was nervous on that first date, but not terrified. We dated several times, but later she met another student at the Bible college who shared her desire for mission work. She broke up with me, started dating him, and later married him. It was all for the best.

One day, Jim Massey, the man with whom I had studied and who baptized me, called to give me the phone number of a young lady he thought I should call. I was a bit skeptical calling someone I had never met, but I did it anyway. I guess you can tell I was quite a different person than I had been. She accepted, and we dated several times. However, she was bit uncomfortable being several years younger than me, so it didn’t work out.

Over the following months I asked several girls on dates. Some accepted; some declined. It was all good. I no longer viewed rejection as a reflection on me as a person. There was one girl I dated off and on for quite some time. I really liked her, but we always seemed to find something on which to disagree. I finally realized it was time to move on.

Early in 1981, I was visiting my parents in Louisville, Kentucky. A good friend who had lived down the street from me as a kid invited me to go to church with him. He told me that Anita Zettler was now going to his church. She no longer went by the name Anita, but rather Kathy, which was short for her middle name, Kathleen. I couldn’t believe it. I was actually going to see the person I thought I would never see again: the girl I had a major crush on in high school.

I still remember being in Sunday School class with Anita…uh, Kathy. During open discussions, she had interesting things to say. Those old feelings began to creep back in, but I was dating someone back in Alabama at the time, so pushed them aside.

In October 1981, I was going to be back in Louisville, and I wasn’t dating anyone. I decided I was going to ask Kathy out. The Louisville Symphony was going to be performing, so that would be our entertainment for the evening. I was visiting with an old friend from junior high and high school the night I needed to call her. But no longer caring about what he might think, I told him I needed to make a call on his phone (we didn’t have cell phones in those days). I called Kathy and told her I’d like to take her out to dinner and the symphony. She accepted; I was elated.

Date day arrived. I drove to Kathy’s house to pick her up. She was living with her parents since she was teaching at a private Christian school at a low salary. We went to Sizzler for dinner and then on to the symphony. We had a great time talking, cutting up, and laughing. I always liked her laugh back in high school, especially when she was laughing at one of my jokes. Sadly, the evening came to an end. When I got back to my parents’ house, they asked me, “How did it go?” I answered, “Let me put it this way. If I had to marry someone tomorrow, she would be the one.” My mom said, “Well, it could happen.” I said, “I don’t know how. We live 300 miles apart.” She said, “Well, all it takes is 18 cents.” That was the cost of a postage stamp at that time.

I returned home to Alabama not knowing what I should do. Luckily, Kathy decided for me. I soon received a letter from her telling me how much she enjoyed our date. This encouraged me. We began writing and calling each other. Keep in mind this was in the day when long distance phone calls were expensive. Soon, we were racking up phone bills in the hundreds of dollars each month. But I didn’t care; I was falling in love. Eventually, Kathy came to Alabama to visit me. I went to Louisville whenever possible to visit her.

A short four months after our first date, I decided I was going to ask Kathy to marry me. It happened on Valentine’s Day of 1982. She said, “YES!” It was a dream come true. I even had people at work notice a change in my countenance afterwards.

We quickly started planning our wedding. We ultimately decided on July 3 of that year at her home church in Louisville. We hoped that date would allow some friends that lived in other places to attend since it would be a holiday weekend.

As the wedding date approached, we continued to visit whenever possible and send letters and make phone calls when not. The big day finally arrived, and it was great.

After our honeymoon, I told Kathy that we didn’t have to keep going to the same church I had been attending. We could visit around and see if another church better suited us as a couple. As it turned out, the first church we visited became our church. Also, in order to learn God’s word better, we began studying the Bible at home. That didn’t turn out as planned.

As we studied Genesis, I began questioning many things, and Kathy didn’t have the answers. I talked to the preacher, some deacons, and some elders at our church about my issues. None of them had the answers. Usually they would conclude, “You just have to have faith.” But that didn’t satisfy me. I wanted to know I was having faith in what was true, not just something I chose to have faith in regardless of its truthfulness. Eventually Kathy and I had to stop our private Bible studies. There were just too many unanswered questions. Ultimately, I stopped reading the Bible for fear I would lose my faith.

Five years passed. I continued to attend and participate in programs at church on a regular basis. But eventually I realized I had to confront my doubts head-on and decide what I really believed about the Bible. I started studying again on my own. Over time, the evidence became overwhelming. I could no longer believe in the resurrection of Jesus, so could no longer say I was a Christian. It was a tough time, and tears were shed by both Kathy and me. We were both concerned about how my changes in belief would affect our marriage. After all, had I not been a Christian when Kathy and I met again, she probably would not have even dated me, let alone marry me. Actually, we probably would not have even met again since I most likely would have never attended her church.

But after several discussions about our situation, it became apparent that we loved each other deeply, and neither of us had any desire to abandon our marriage. Our love was stronger than our differences.

It has been over 30 years since my deconversion and our marriage is stronger than ever. When I think of Kathy, I am reminded of the old Spiral Starecase song, “I Love You More Today Then Yesterday.” The lyrics continue with “but not as much as tomorrow.”

To this day I wonder what happened. Why did I come to truly believe the resurrection message for a little over two years, just long enough to gain confidence with women, reconnect with my high school crush, fall in love, and get married? It seems as if the whole thing was orchestrated. I often wonder if God was behind it because he knew Kathy and I belonged together, and my conversion was the only path to that end. Of course, I realize it could all just be a happy coincidence. I also frequently wonder what my life would look like had these events not taken place and I never married Kathy. I simply can’t imagine that it could in any way be better than it is. I consider myself to be very fortunate, or should I say blessed. Kathy feels the same way.

I wrote this story because I felt it was important. Perhaps it will help others in a similar situation. But even if it doesn’t, it’s still a good story. One that would make a good movie, perhaps. Well, one can dream, right? I once did and look where it took me.

First Contact – Part 24 – Presbyterians

When I was in the third grade, my mom and dad and I moved from a rental house to a purchased house. There were a number of boys close to my age that lived near our new dwelling. One boy, Mike, became a close friend that I stay in contact with to this day. He attended a Presbyterian Church just a few miles from home. The church had a dartball team, which is a knockoff of baseball using darts and a dartboard. At some point Mike joined the dartball team. The first time I set foot in a Presbyterian Church was with Mike at his church. We used to go by occasionally to play some dartball and table tennis. Sometimes we would stop by during the day when the minister was in his office. One day we stopped into his office when he wasn’t there. Mike sat in his rolling chair behind his desk while I sat on the opposite side. Mike got to goofing off by rolling the chair around on the plastic mat it sat on. At one point he pushed off hard, sending the chair and himself across the plastic. But he had pushed too hard because he suddenly disappeared behind the desk. The wheels of the chair had rolled off the plastic onto the carpet which brought the chair to a sudden stop, toppling it and its passenger onto the floor. Luckily Mike wasn’t hurt, and we had a belly laugh over it.

I love pipe organs. There’s something powerful and majestic about being in a large building such as a cathedral and hearing the sound of air rushing through those carefully tuned pipes and then echoing multiple times off the walls. It’s even better with an expert at the helm of the keyboard.

When I was in college in Louisville, Kentucky, my friend Richard and I heard about a pipe organ concert at a local Presbyterian seminary. Richard loved pipe organ music as much as I did, so we made arrangements to attend the concert. It was not in a large cathedral, but sounded fantastic anyway.

After Kathy and I got engaged in early 1982, I heard about a pre-marriage counseling class being held at our local university. I thought it couldn’t hurt to attend. Perhaps I could pick up a few tips about how to be a good husband and how to keep my marriage alive. Since Kathy lived 300 miles away, she was unable to go with me. As it turned out, a Presbyterian minister from a nearby church was conducting the class. From the get go I realized he was different from other ministers I knew. He was very informal, sometimes conducting the class while we all sat on the floor. I don’t remember anything that was said in the class except for a brief exchange about the words in 1 John 4:8, “God is Love”.

After getting married, a couple of friends, who were members of the Church of Christ just as Kathy and I were at the time, came to visit so they could attend a wedding. Interestingly, the minister who conducted the wedding was the same one who had conducted the pre-marriage class I had taken.

After the wedding one of those friends expressed his dismay that at the reception the minister had ordered an alcoholic beverage. When the bartender asked how he wanted it, he replied, “Straight up, the way God intended it.” Our friends, being teetotalers, were flabbergasted that a minister of the Gospel would be drinking any type of alcohol. Even though I was not a drinker, I knew that the Bible did not condemn drinking alcohol; only drinking alcohol to excess. So we got into a spirited discussion about the issue. Unfortunately, I later learned that the minister had become an alcoholic, which led to some problems in his life. Far be it from me to condemn this man. It seems that everyone has their own personal demons they have to fight. And I’m not picking on Presbyterians. I remember my parents talking about a Baptist minister they knew that had had a drinking problem. Apparently he used to tell people, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Hey, there was a Church of Christ minister who was friends with one of the elders at our church that hired a couple of men to murder his wife. So, immorality can strike any of us regardless of our status. We must all be ever diligent lest one grab hold of us and not let go.

There was a TV and radio evangelist I used to watch and listen to years ago named D. James Kennedy. He was the founder of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. There was something compelling about his preaching style, although it sometimes seemed overly dramatic and almost arrogant. Some of you may remember D. James Kennedy because of his support of Judge Roy Moore, a former and now current Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. In fact, Kennedy’s Coral Ridge Ministries was the group that filmed the 2001 installation of the 5280 pound granite block that contained two large carved tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments. I know many people supported Moore’s action in installing the monument, but I found his actions problematic. Moore’s contention is that the laws of the United States are based on the Ten Commandments. But if one studies these commandments in the Bible along with God’s decreed punishments for breaking them, you will quickly see that U.S. law departs greatly from them. I cover in detail the Ten Commandments and their associated punishments in my book “God Is”.

First Contact – Part 14 – Christian Church

Back in the 19^th century a new church movement began. Two independent groups decided that Christ’s church should be united rather than divided. They sought to be known only as Christians. Not Baptists. Not Presbyterians. Not even Protestants. Just Christians. The movement came to be known as the Restoration Movement since it sought to restore the church as it was in the first century. One of the two movements originated with Barton Stone in Kentucky. The other originated with Thomas Campbell and his son Alexander in what is now West Virginia. Over time the attempted unification failed and the movement ended up splitting into three major groups: Church of Christ, Christian Church, and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). I discussed the Church of Christ in my first post in this series. I will now discuss the Christian Church. In the next post I will discuss the Disciples of Christ.

My wife Kathy was raised in the United Church of Christ, which, by the way, is not related to the Church of Christ. However, when she went off to college she found a new church home in the Christian Church. She joined a Christian Church affiliated student fellowship called His House and began attending the Christian Church. When she moved back home to start her teaching career, she found a nearby Christian Church to attend. That is where she was attending when she and I started dating.

Kathy and I first became acquainted during our senior year in high school. We had a couple of classes together as well as study hall. I developed a crush on her, but was way too shy in those days to do anything about it. She went off to Murray State University to get her Master’s degree so she could teach math. I stayed at home and went to the University of Louisville to get my Master’s degree so I could be a chemical engineer. As I mentioned in my first post in this series, it was after I started my career in Alabama that I became a Christian. I was a member of the Church of Christ.

In early 1981, I was home visiting my parents. A good friend who grew up just down the street from me asked if I would like to go to church with him. He went to a Christian Church. He informed me that Anita went to church there also. My wife’s name is Anita Kathleen. In high school everyone knew her as Anita, but she dropped that name in college since all her family called her Kathy, and she was tired of being known by two different names. Anyway, I knew that the Christian Church used instrumental music and had other differences from the Church of Christ, but I was not as strict about such things as others were. So I attended the Christian Church with my friend. This was the first time since high school that I had seen Kathy. It was in Sunday School that I realized that I still had feelings for her. However, I was dating someone else in Alabama at the time.

In October 1981, I was once again in Louisville, but this time I was not dating anyone. I called Kathy up and asked her to go to dinner and see a performance of the Louisville Symphony Orchestra. She accepted. We had a great time together on that date. Thus began what some would call a whirlwind romance. It started with letters, then phone calls, then visits. Keep in mind that we lived 300 miles apart, so visiting was not easy. Also, in those days long distance phone calls were expensive. So we were racking up monthly phone bills in the hundreds of dollars.

When we would get together, one of the things we would discuss was our Christian beliefs. We both knew our relationship was getting serious, and we wanted to make sure that our beliefs were close enough to not cause us problems down the road. She knew I had no problem with the Christian Church since I had been going there when in Louisville. When she visited me, she attended the Church of Christ where I was a member. There was no Christian Church anywhere near where I lived, so that was not an option.

Both the Church of Christ and the Christian Church had a code they lived by: Speak where the Bible speaks, and be silent where the Bible is silent. It bugged me that both churches believed this statement, yet somehow came to different conclusions on some matters. Upon analyzing it for a while, I finally realized why there were differences. The first part of the code, speak where the Bible speaks, caused no problems. If the Bible said to do something, both churches did it. If the Bible said to refrain from something, both churches refrained. It was the second part of the code, be silent where the Bible is silent, that was causing the conflict. You see, the Church of Christ took being silent about something as being the same as refraining from it. The Christian Church took being silent about something as meaning that God didn’t care one way or the other. This difference made for some interesting discussions.

The New Testament says we should sing to God as part of our worship, but it is silent about musical instruments. Therefore, the Church of Christ refrains from using instruments in worship as its way of being silent on the matter. The Christian Church believes you can use instruments or not since God is silent and thus doesn’t care. There were a number of other differences that stemmed from these differing interpretations of what being silent on an issue means. Personally, I came down on the side of the Christian Church even though I could argue either position. In fact, I was so familiar with differing doctrines I could argue either side of a lot of issues.

As I said, Kathy's and my romance went quickly. Just four months after our first date, on Valentine’s Day 1982, I asked Kathy to marry me. She said yes, and we were soon in discussions with her mom about what date and venue to choose. Ultimately, we decided on July 3, 1982. That allowed Kathy to finish teaching for the school year, and it was around a holiday, thus allowing more people from out of town to attend. As for venue, we decided to wed at Kathy’s church. It was to be officiated by both the preacher from her church and the campus minister of His House at Murray State University.

After marrying, Kathy and I began studying the Bible together at home on a regular basis. We started in Genesis and planned to work our way through Revelation. But plans have a way of being disrupted. There were a number of passages in Genesis that bugged me. I had questions that neither Kathy nor the Bible could answer. I began discussing these issues with our preacher, elders, and deacons. I soon found that they did not have any answers either. At least not any acceptable answers. Many times the answer was, “Sometimes you just have to have faith.” But I knew that oftentimes people had faith in things that were untrue. I needed evidence to distinguish between truth and untruth. In too many cases, that evidence was not forthcoming. So, Kathy’s and my Bible study fell by the wayside.

About five years into our marriage, I found myself rejecting the Bible as being God’s Word. This was something Kathy and I had never even considered before we got married. We had discussed our differences in religious beliefs, which were minimal. But never did we consider the possibility of one of us rejecting those beliefs sometime down the road. It was a difficult time. But ultimately, our love for each other won the day. Our love was able bridge even the gap between an agnostic and a Christian.

In 1 Corinthians 13:1-8a, the Apostle Paul says this about love:

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

Hey, I believe Paul was on to something here. Five years into our marriage, Kathy and I faced what some might call a crisis. My beliefs were diverging from hers. In fact, had I had my new beliefs before we wed, we most likely would not have gotten married. Yet there we were; married and believing differently. But as Paul says, “Love never fails.” It certainly didn’t fail us, but it required us to latch onto it and not let it loose.

I look back on this now with wonderment. It almost seemed like a supernatural intervention occurred. I became a Christian just long enough for Kathy and me to fall in love and get married. I became a Christian in 1980. We started dating in 1981. We married in 1982. I began doubting the Bible soon after. I became a nonbeliever in 1987. Could it be that God, or fate, or something else, wanted Kathy and me to be together, so arranged the circumstances just long enough for that to happen? I don’t really know, but it’s something to think about.

So, after over 32 years of marriage, Kathy and I love each other more than ever. I am reminded of the 1969 Spiral Starecase hit song “More Today Than Yesterday.” The lyrics say, “I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow.” It’s a great song. Yet, there are many who believe that Kathy will go to heaven, and I will go to hell. To me, that is saying that love is more powerful in this life than in the next. Yet, God is supposed to BE love. Is he incapable of loving me at least as much as Kathy does? Why would he deny our love in the afterlife? And why would this denial be based on sincerely held differences in beliefs rather than our actions? It makes no sense to me.