Author: Higher Things

Bob and Cyndi Myers

BOB

Looking back on more than three decades of marriage gives us pause to reflect on God’s gift of marriage. I confess that as a young man there were many times when I wished that I could see into the future and know just what lay ahead for me. I guessing that sometimes you might think that, too.

We know couples who are happy in marriage, couples who are unhappy in marriage, singles who are happily single, and singles who are discontented in their single state.

So, would it be a good thing to be able to see decades into the future? Would it lead to a sense of peace or a sense of despair?

The popular culture will always try to describe norms of behavior or shape your view of what is important in dating or in marriage. Very often these influences on behavior simply boil down to personal appearance, popularity and social status.

Each person, each couple, is unique in many ways, and yet each are the same in that they are given to live out the vocation that the Lord has given them.

CYNDI

As a young woman I dreamed of someday meeting that one person whom I could love and be loved by “til death do us part.” Not yet understanding my vocation as daughter, sister, student, co-worker and friend, it seemed there was something more I wanted. I was not content with what I had and with whom God had made me to be.  I thought I would be happier if I were smarter, prettier, and thinner, had a more prestigious job, a handsome and popular boyfriend, etc.  The Lord tells us to be content in Him and trust that God will provide all that we need. Amazingly, God’s love is so great that He also gives us 
gifts we don’t even ask for.

In 1980, I was very content with my life and being single. I did what I wanted, when I wanted, which included going to church (or not), visiting my parents (or not), serving my neighbor (or not). One day a friend and co-worker approached me and began telling me about a guy her spouse worked with. She said, “You guys would be perfect for each other” so she asked my permission to set us up on a blind date to meet at their home for dinner. We all laughed, talked, ate, and just had a great time. That evening, my blind date asked to see me again, and we dated for several months. All the while, I never thought: This is the one.

BOB

Thanks be to God for the gift of His Holy Word! His Word points us to what it is that we should consider important. We can see that it is considered important to be equally yoked, and by that I mean man and woman alike under the yoke of Jesus. Christ is the one who said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” But I would further advise you to consider what that means within the world of believers. It can be quite difficult if one person is from a church body that joyfully receives the Sacraments and the other person is from a tradition that disregards the Sacraments and even goes so far as to deny the effective work of God in them. For these reasons it is important that you consider these things when you choose a person to date and even more so when you consider the possibility of marriage.

The Lord has promised to give us everything we need (2 Peter 1:3). We do not necessarily receive everything we want. We daily sin much, and often are not content with what we have been given, yet we have a Father in heaven who delights in giving good things to those who ask Him (Matthew 7:11).

God alone supplies all that we need to sustain this body and life. He has provided a perfectly created order, and a picture of this relationship is described in Ephesians 5. Read the Table of Duties in Luther’s Small Catechesis and hear what it says to husbands, wives, youth, parents, and children.

So while you haven’t been promised, and you’re most likely not going to get a sign from above in the form of a halo of shimmering light over “Mr. or Miss Right,” you have been given the promise of eternal life, the assurance that He cares for us, and the historical fact that He gave Himself up for us.

In Christ we are never alone. God has promised “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

CYNDI

God chose this man to give to me through the gift of holy matrimony and on April 7, 1981 we were joined by God at His altar. I could not have imagined all that He would bless us with. Throughout 33 years of marriage, we have been through good times and bad but looking back, the hardest times were the ones that made our marriage stronger. Keeping Christ as our focus helped us to grow in our faith and in our marriage.

God has blessed us in more ways than we could have ever thought to ask for, two children, two grandchildren, steady employment, a home, a faithful church and pastor, opportunities to serve our neighbors, good health and so much more.

God gave me the perfect spouse—the one He created for me!

But we are chosen by Him and made perfect through His son Jesus Christ and THAT is the greatest gift of all!

Bob and Cyndi Myers live in Milton, Florida and worship at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Pensacola. When they are not busy being parents and grandparents, Bob, a retired Navy Mustang, is a truck driver and Cyndi is a travel agent for the military. Both greatly enjoy working with youth at church, particularly in catechesis. They can be reached at myers.w.robert@gmail.com (Bob) and navwif@gmail.com (Cyndi).

Rev. Joel Fritsche

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. 
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed 
is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame 
when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. (Psalm 127:3-5 ESV)

My wife and I have three sons. I’d say my quiver is quite full, even though I don’t have seven or eight children. Arrows in the hand of a warrior? Yes, I’d say so, but I suppose I mean that a bit differently than the Psalmist. Of course, I agree with the Psalmist, too. Don’t get me wrong. My gates will be well-defended with my three Russian-born adopted sons and their genetic body-building physiques. Did you see Rocky IV? Enemies beware! You will lose! But sometimes the arrows are aimed right back at me. That’s what I was getting at. Honestly, I struggle as a father. It’s a weighty vocation with increasing demands, not just on my time, but on my patience, too. It’s tough raising three boys! Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them? It’s true. In spite of the struggles and challenges of parenthood, there are many blessings.

As a pastor, I officiate at about five or six weddings per year. In premarital instruction I talk with couples about children: the blessings and challenges. Each time at the wedding service, I read those words in the opening sentences about marriage and the blessings that God gives along with it. The one that comes toward the end is this: “God also established marriage for the procreation of children who are to be brought up in the fear and instruction of the Lord so that they may offer Him their praise” (Holy Matrimony, LSB 275).

Children are only one of the many blessings of marriage. I always wanted to have children and I always thought I would have children. But I wasn’t devastated when my wife revealed before our engagement that she had known since childhood that she would not likely ever conceive and bear children. If children are a blessing from the Lord, then is being unable to have children a kind of punishment? The Gospel says no! Jesus bore the punishment of her sins, as well as yours and mine.

Seeing that my wife had a peace about her circumstances was comforting to me. Anticipating the other blessings God gives in marriage, like mutual companionship, help and support, and the delight husbands and wives are privileged to have for one another moved us forward into marriage. And it wasn’t long after our wedding that we started looking into the possibility of adoption. Five years later we were on a plane flying across Russia with two little boys. Three years after that, we were bringing home their brother from the same region in Russia—from the same birth mother even.

I can’t say that I never wonder what it might have been like for my wife and I to have had biological children. I know she wonders, too. Childbirth is an incredible miracle. Every birth is a living reminder of our Savior’s birth. But adoption certainly has its picture, too. It carries that image of new birth—our adoption by God’s grace in Christ (Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 1:5; Romans 8:15). My sons will always be a living reminder to me of that blessed truth. I pray that the reality of their adoption will hold that image of Divine grace before them throughout their lives also.

Speaking of images and pictures, I find that through my children, there’s a unique blessing to be received. A family of five living together under the same roof presents a picture of its own. As I recognize and confess my sins within my vocation of father, as I struggle with my lack of patience, as my anger sometimes gets the better of me, I see a brighter reflection of a heavenly Father who poured out His anger over my sin—not on me, but on Jesus. There’s hope for me, despite my failures and sins as a father, because I have a compassionate heavenly Father who loves me in Christ. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him (Psalm 103:13).

By God’s grace, the Holy Spirit increases my desire to be patient with my children and to show them the same compassion that God the Father shows me. It encourages me to be a faithful father, to bring these boys up in the fear and instruction of the Lord. And despite the challenge of that part of my vocation in the 21st century, the blessing of children abounds and overflows even into the lives of others. I see it as I look out into the pew and see my sons singing the Gloria or confessing the Creed. I see it when my parishioners tell me the joy that they experience when they hear my sons singing and praying. It’s yet another picture, a living testimony of childlike faith in Jesus.

A heritage from the Lord? Indeed! The fruit of the womb a reward? Definitely. My quiver is filled with the Lord’s blessing for my wife, for me, and for my neighbor, too!

Rev. Joel Fritsche is an adopted child of God, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Staunton, Illinois, and a member of the board of directors of Higher Things.

Sandra Ostapowich

“I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband.” (1 Corinthians 7:32-34)

Unless your family is rather unusual, being unmarried is pretty much the default for American teenagers these days. A lot of your friends are probably dating, and thinking and dreaming about marriage to their “special person” one day. Maybe you are, too!

Or maybe not.

It can be difficult when it seems like everyone else is dating and has a special someone with whom to hang out and rehash the day’s drama. When the winter semi-formal or spring prom comes up, you can cover your lack of a date by collecting a group of friends to all go together. Or you just don’t go at all. Maybe it’s just too awkward. Who likes being lonely in a crowd…of couples?

Being single, especially once you’re out on your own, can be really hard. It’s so, SO easy to give in to the temptation to despise the vocation you’ve been given. Family (even strangers) will pat you on the shoulder and encourage you to do just that! “Don’t worry dear, it’ll be your turn soon. Someone as wonderful as you is just too good not to be snatched up yet!” they say, consolingly.

I get it. It weighs on us when so many things in society revolve around couples and families. Ironically, it’s often worse in the church, where the ideal man is a husband and father and the ideal woman is a wife and mother. And then there’s you: none of the above. Less than ideal. Maybe not even a real man or woman.

Everyone says it’ll get better…but what if it doesn’t? What if you end up watching your friends and (younger) relatives check off those significant milestones of engagements, weddings, and births, never getting to experience them yourself? What if that person never walks into your life and you’re stuck alone, forever?

[Cue the Accuser’s whispers in the back of your mind, “You’re alone because there’s something wrong with you. You don’t deserve to be loved. You’re so pathetic. You really are going to be alone for the rest of your life.”]

But singleness isn’t a curse. It’s not the anti-vocation to the real vocation of being a husband or wife. And it’s definitely not a prison sentence to a life of solitary confinement, as you wait (oh-so-impatiently) for some romanticized, idealized, significant-other to swoop in and save you from this miserable existence so you can finally start living a real life. A married life.

Repent of this kind of thinking! You already have a Savior—One who has loved you to death, and has raised you to new life again.

The reality is that being single is a perfectly good, God-given, God-pleasing, genuine vocation. St. Paul even says it’s better than marriage (1 Corinthians 7:8, 38)! The very fact that you are not married is an actual vocation all its own. It’s not even the “not-married” vocation, it’s just you! Not alone—but you, as a unique, individual child of God; you, set apart in Christ, for the Lord to serve your neighbor through you; you, holy by virtue of your baptism.

Regardless of how you feel, you’re not alone. You just aren’t married. That’s a huge difference. When you’re not oriented around a spouse, you are free to take advantage of a whole world of opportunities around you! Not for sexual relationships, mind you, but for all sorts of relationships in which you can invest your time and energy and love, with all that you have been given in Christ—and without worrying that you’re neglecting a spouse and children as you do. What a gift your singleness is to your neighbors!

So when you’re feeling lonely, fight against the swirling vortex of self-pity. Go visit someone stuck in a nursing home, whose friends have all died and who hasn’t seen a relative in weeks. When you want someone to hold your hand and tell you everything is going to be okay, go sit at the bedside of a hospitalized member of your church for a while. Hold her hand and remind her of her baptism. When you long for someone to tell you you’re wonderful and matter to him or her, volunteer to mentor a kid who has probably never heard another person telling him that he’s good for anything.

And if the day comes when He gives you a spouse, then that’ll be a gift for you. Each day that He doesn’t is another day for you to turn your attention toward serving Him in the place where He has put you, caring for the neighbors that He has put in your world.

And so your singleness can never be a curse; it is a gift. After all, the curse of sin was already borne by Jesus. He has no curses for you. The One who was truly alone is the One who suffered and died for the sins of the world. In Him, you are never alone. He is with you always, each day, in the Word which forgives you, in the baptism that washes you, and in the Sacrament that feeds you.

Sandra Ostapowich is the conference executive for Higher Things and served for 9 years on the Higher Things Board of Directors. She lives with her son in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, where she is also studying for her Ph.D. in Missiology at Concordia Theological Seminary.