Payback's rough. I turned 40 this year. He flew in two friends from Los Angeles and Chicago to spend a surprise weekend with me. We hadn't been together in 20 years. Richard took over the housework and kids, and we had our Big Chill weekend.
Now he turns 50, and this column is part of my surprise. No toilet cake. You tamed the shrew.
If there's anything good that I do, you can thank Richard. When we met on a blind date 16 years ago, he had been warned it might be difficult to solve a problem like Mary. He believed it when he met me, and my black hair was almost as long as my black dress was short. My life was an exercise in new and improved ways to self-destruct.
That very first date, something happened. He saw through my blarney to a scared survivor clinging by her long, red fingernails. About an hour after we met, he looked at me, smiled, and commented, “You've had a rough time.”
I looked in his eyes and saw I was safe. Safe was new. A nice, normal guy was undiscovered country. He found my antics — most of them, anyway — amusing.
We married two years later. Many doubted it would work. His family was traditional; mine was not. I had moved 25 times in 26 years, and he had moved 5 times in 36 years.
When we went through premarital counseling, we suspect we flunked the compatibility test. But we worked through ten weeks of sessions, and at the end, we were told that I would say anything and would venture where angels feared to tread. Richard heard the sacred in silence and saw into others' hearts. We would learn from each other.
It took another 6 years for me to find God. Richard was by my side the whole time, though I fought to keep a safe distance from him. When we were told to cross a river, I put us in separate rowboats. Richard got in his boat and silently rowed to the other side. I got in my boat talking nonstop, rowing in circles around him worrying.
“Will we get there? How will we get there? What if this happens? Do you think if I did this and you tried that we would get there faster? Yes, I know I've not stopped talking for 17 days straight, but this is important and why aren't you listening to my every word? Did we go faster an hour ago and why does it seem slower and what if we fail and and and…”
Finally, we would get to the other side, and I would collapse on land gasping, “We got here! Can you believe it? How did it happen?”
Richard would smile quietly and say, “Of course we did.” It wasn't easy — most of his grey hairs have my name engraved upon them.
God knew I needed stability and sent me a husband who meets deadlines, completes tasks, and keeps his word. His steady work wore off a chip of anger the size of a boulder. As I learned to trust Richard, I opened a dialog with a God.
That took a few years and a near-death experience. When my son and I survived a high-risk pregnancy, it was only by the grace of God and intervention of angels. I'll never forget seeing the look on Richard's face when he first held our babies. We committed to raising our children to know, love, and serve God in this world.
Four years ago, our home and business burned on a Saturday night. On Sunday, Richard set up a makeshift office in a friend's spare bedroom. Monday morning, we strung phone lines from the burned-out shell of our kitchen to our driveway. The phone lines still worked. Richard set up a card table, in the driveway, where we put the phone. At 8:05AM, our first client called, asking if we had shut down. I told our client, “We are open for business. Your deadline is this afternoon, and we'll meet it.”
As I hung up the phone, Richard stared at me and said, “I need to get to work.” Of course, he met the deadline. We were more than husband and wife, parents, or business partners. Two became one.
Most new businesses close before their fifth-year anniversary. The odds of a business closing, if it is burned out one year after opening, are higher, astronomically. By the grace of God and the sweat of Richard's brow, our business survived.
Challenges are still there, like they are for every family. I treasure lines Maria sings in The Sound of Music:
Perhaps I had a wicked childhood
Perhaps I had a miserable youth
But somewhere in my wicked, miserable past
There must have been a moment of truth.For here you are, standing there, loving me
Whether or not you should
So somewhere in my youth or childhood I must have done something good.
Richard's my best critic. For 13 years, he pushed me to write, and I ignored him. Can't do it. Don't have the time. Finally, I began.
He can make me livid, when I read something I wrote to him and he tells me, “It's not there yet” or “You missed the mark.” The problem is — he's right. He takes my wacky ideas and no matter how complicated they are, he makes them work.
I still experience culture shock when he cares for our children. It's part of surviving with a Dad gap — I don't know what it's like to have a caring father. My kids do.
Richard's told them — and me — he'll always listen whenever they need to talk. He's always there, in the background, working quietly for his family.
The chains of a miserable youth broke, and my children have a new beginning.
Tomorrow morning, next week, and next year, they are secure in their father's love.
Jesus told a thirsty woman He could give her water to take away thirst forever. He offered her His sustenance, instead of that of this world. Richard spent years as a quiet, steady German worker, plowing the field and planting seeds in my heart.
God sends some missionaries to the corners of the earth to bring thousands to Christ. Michelangelo saw the angel in the marble. My husband, Richard the Illustrator, saw a future wife and mother hidden in a loudmouthed, frightened survivor. What he did is as remarkable as what any missionary did to a crowd or any artist sculpted from rock.
Richard taught me that living life in Christ is more rewarding than surviving life without Him.
I'll decorate a nice cake this birthday. Promise.
Happy 50th, Richard.
Mary Biever is a homeschooling mother of two who publishes encouragement articles and runs Encouragement Workshops For Today's Families.
This article was adapted from one of her columns.
