The Genesis and Nature of Holy Matrimony

I am pleased you read my blogs, Vel. Your pretense of atheism says volumes about you. If you truly rejected God and His followers, you would have long ago stepped aside from your arguments.

Over my many decades of life as an engineer, a salesman, and a corporate account executive covering the southern tier of states, understanding people was my highest priority. In my worldview, a good salesman helps prospective customers make good decisions, decisions that solve the customer’s problem. A good salesman understands the difference between an objection and a rejection. The first means “to throw in the way”; the second “to throw away”.

Your responses to my posts overflow with objections but not even one rejection. If otherwise, I would not take the time to respond to you. Responses to rejections are a waste of time. Your objections reveal you are a seeker of truth. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

Please continue to follow me and read all I write. I welcome your comments.

Unquestionably, you genuinely want to know God. Wise men and women still seek Him.

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Vel,

I was ambivalent about Christianity from my childhood, throughout my upbringing, and through the first five years of our marriage.

The block on which I lived in my hometown featured a church on each corner: First Presbyterian, First Methodist, First Nazarene, First Assembly of God. Not once in the first 15 years of my life did anyone from those four churches approach me. After the divorce of my parents — I was six years of age — we lived in poverty. For a couple of years, we had no automobile and, at best, enough food for the next meal. My older sister, four years my senior, and I went to work. At seven years of age, my aunt signed a note with Sears Roebuck and Company so I could purchase a Craftsman self-propelled lawnmower. The two of us supplemented our household income. I mowed lawns. She worked in a retail store after school. At nine years of age, a summer job as a deckhand on a shrimp boat became available.

At ten, an electrical taught me the basics of his trade and I was then able to provide rudimentary electrical services to residential customers. Along the way, I had a newspaper route. I became adroit at small engine repair and services the lawnmowers and go-karts around town. My self-motivation enabled me to learn vacuum tube theory at 9 years of age, the same year I learned to drive a car.

Mom remarried when I was fifteen. My stepfather realized I was “the oldest young man” he ever knew. He taught me how to lie about my age to work on offshore drilling rigs as a roughneck at age 17.

The above experiences are not things I lament. On the contrary, they all contributed to my skill sets. I regret none of my early experiences, choosing instead to count them as great life experiences.

With respect to local Christians, those four churches totally ignored us. Naturally, I sensed no value in being one of them. I wasn’t angry with them, just indifferent to them. I learned to be my own motivator, not requiring anyone’s approval, ambivalent to criticism.

At nineteen, I joined the Navy where I rapidly advanced from E-1 to E-5 in 23 months. At twenty-one, I was supervising over 100 other young men.

The payoff from all my life experiences earned me a position as an engineer with the Norden Company in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Along the way, I knew people who purported to be Christians. Only two affected me, one a Catholic seminary graduate who enlisted in the Navy. He initially thought he wanted to be a priest. This Christian was not shy about his faith. Neither was he attempting to persuade me. He and I discussed simple theological points that stuck with me.

The second Christian was an Air Force sergeant who, it turns out, was secretly praying for me. While with the aerospace company, I was assigned to two Air Force bases, a Marine Corps base, and a Navy aircraft carrier, along with working in the Connecticut factory. That sergeant was different. Despite my profanity and alcoholism, I came to realize he loved me.

As the contract for my assignment to that last Air Force base was coming to an end, the boss was planning to return me to the factory for a new project underway. But, my wife and I wanted to return to Texas.

So it was, I landed an engineering job in Dallas, Texas. It looked good until that prospective employer required a physical exam by their designated corporate doctor. My blood pressure was 196/98. That doctor told me the company would reject me. He said, “Your boiler is about to blow up.” Indeed, that is exactly what happened. I was suddenly unemployed and unemployable.

At my wits end, my pride vanished. How would I pay the rent? How could I feed my wife and my little children?

My wife was a genuine Christian long before we married. She never condemned me and never preached to me. She just loved me.

She suggested I read her red-letter Bible. I opened it to Genesis (the first book of the Old Testament). She said we don’t have enough time for you to start reading there. Instead, she opened it to Matthew (the first book of the New Testament).

Approximately three weeks later, I had an inexplicable encounter with Jesus on a Sunday night after all my family was asleep. The next morning I went to a doctor who was treating me pro bono. My blood pressure that Monday morning was 120/70. He explained to me how it was now normal. I asked him to put that in writing. He did and I was able to assume my new engineering position within a couple of weeks.

My point is this. My coming to faith in Jesus Christ was not at the behest of another person but a divine encounter. My life began radical changes, some suddenly, most gradually.

I realize, Vel, nothing I say will persuade you to become a Christian. My point is this: only Jesus can save you. And, He will meet you where you are, just as you are.

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