December 16, 1969
During these early weeks of marriage, Nate and I were focused on each other and our new life together almost to the exclusion of everything else (except our schools, of course). On the surface it seemed selfish, but both of us believed God was endorsing it.
We’d heard that in biblical times, when a couple married, they’d take a “gap year” from all other pursuits to learn to live with each other lovingly and successfully. The culture believed this one-on-one exclusivity would result in a rock-solid foundation for a marriage that could last a lifetime.
Of course there were then (and are now) an endless array of challenges that can get in the way of reaching that goal. As Nate and I talked about this, we learned that focusing on each other meant something different for him than it did for me.
From the first day we met on a blind date as college seniors, he had chosen to put me in an honored place in his mind. Since then, not one hour (probably not even 5 minutes) had gone by without him thinking of me, and in his letters, he often told me so.
He strategized how to please me and tried to come up with new ways to prove his love. His mind was focused on me long before mine was on him, but that never stopped him. Getting married, then, was simply an extension of that way of thinking.
For me, our one-on-one newlywed year would accomplish something different. After dating a number of boys, some for years at a time, I came into our marriage with some heavy romantic baggage. In my heart I very much wanted to erase all of those boy-girl memories, and I hoped as Nate and I delighted in each other, all that history would fade away.
As the days passed, that seemed to be happening, and I was grateful. But female minds resist emotional housecleaning, and less than 3 weeks into our marriage, a memory-crisis came out of nowhere.
Random thoughts about the relationship I’d had just before Nate (the non-Christian boyfriend) suddenly began popping into my head on a haphazard basis. They were not thoughts of longing or love but were just indiscriminate memories that took me by surprise…. and took me back to that time. They were unwelcome and disturbing.
I desperately wanted to fix the problem and went immediately to Nate, asking him what to do. Nate was not offended and thanked me for coming to him. But he talked about the danger of this, which I recognized, too.
His first suggestion was that together we pray about it every day, with strong confidence that God would put a stop to it.
We asked the Lord to stand guard over my mind in a way neither of us had the power to do. We knew his desire was that our marriage thrive and remain pure in every way, which included our thoughts. He didn’t want past relationships to contaminate it… and neither did we.
As time went by, our cries to God helped immensely. My dating past began surfacing less and less, and one day I realized I hadn’t thought about my old boyfriend throughout that day.
I often told Nate, “My mind and heart belong completely to you, and I love you with everything in me, head to toe. I love no one else in the way that I love you. You are, and always will be, my number one.”
As we happily enjoyed each other’s company one-on-one, I sensed that absolutely nothing was ever going to come between us. God had powerfully answered our prayers by shutting the memory-door and locking it.
But then something happened…. to kick it in.
“Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong.” (1 Corinthians 15:13)