Bert & Jan, the First Fifty Years

 Some thoughts:

 Bottom line…it has been perfectly wonderful and every single day from the grace of God. It is God’s doing IN us, and not BY us.

We started off well, praying together for God’s will in our lives and marriage.

We have always been of ‘one mind’ and one purpose which is to please and serve God.

God blessed Jan with a submissive heart, and Bert with agape love for Jan –both are unmerited gifts of God’s grace to us.

We did everything together including ministry, vacations, kids, tackle problems etc.

God kept us from selfishness and bickering and anger. We did not argue or get mad at each other.

We had plenty of differences of opinions, but our intent was always to come to a mutually agreeable solution, that would honor God. That is a world apart from intending to “win.”

We were always on the same team; we played doubles, not singles.

We have always had a focus for our lives and that is to influence others to know and love Christ.

Bert choose Eph 3.10 for our life verse before we were married…

                “Now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or

think according to the power that is in us.”

There is no way we could have planned the wonderful life He has provided us.

He made us “one.”  It is a reality to us.

It has gone by exceedingly fast! …..like “swish”  and fifty years already!

Our mind set was commitment to each other, and to be ‘one’ before God.

We have been in the Bible nearly every day all of our married lives

We have taught Bible studies, and SS classes etc. nearly continuously ..

We pray a lot.

We believe God, we TRUST Him, we rely on Him for guidance and wisdom

We each spend time alone with God daily, and we also talk a lot about the things of  God.

We exposed ourselves to Christian things, conferences, godly men, and got close to

organizations like Campus Crusade for Christ, Navigators,  & Young Life and we are constantly reading great books about the things of God and His Word.

 In Dr. Henry Brandt’s outstanding book MARRIAGE GOD’S WAY he uses the word “intent” repeatedly. When I look back over the “first fifty” I believe that our intent was what allowed God to bless us so much. God looks at the heart, at the motive, and although we made many misteakes, our intent was pleasing to Him.

People have asked us “What should we look out for, what pitfalls to avoid, what is the secret to ‘communication,’ and the like”  We don’t have specific answers for those things that are so big in many marriages today. We simply walked close as we could to God, we  love each other , and we talk about everything. We really never fell in any ‘pits’, and we didn’t have communication problems. Nice. But still, the bottom line is…God did it, IN us.

 All of us can find everything we need for a godly marriage today, by reading the Bible and obeying God’s commands, and it is also tremendously helpful to read Dr. Brandt’s MARRIAGE GOD’S WAY, and his workbook called THE HEART OF THE PROBLEM.