25 YEARS ON

Friday morning I found myself in a chapel service at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky sitting in the back row between two of the best friends I could ask for.

Tim now lives in Illinois and Jamie in Georgia but we first met over 25 years ago when all three of us were students at Asbury Theological Seminary, just across the street.

Here we are now as old guys. I'm on the left, Tim is in the middle, and Jamie is on the right. (And John Wesley insisted on being in the picture, too.)

I found myself tearing up during worship and outright crying as the campus pastor was praying. 

They were tears of gratitude.

Here we were 25 years after sharing classes and working together in youth ministry, and our old friend and classmate Greg is up front as the campus pastor praying and Tim's daughter Ruby is playing the mandolin in the praise band.

Who could have guessed? 

The whole time Tim and I were roommates at Asbury, he kept dipping his toes in the dating pool and nothing ever worked out. He was confused. I would ask him, "What are you going to do about it?" And he would reply, "I just need to pray about it and figure it out."

If he hadn't eventually succeeded in praying about it and figuring it out, Ruby wouldn't be up there sharing her gifts as a student at the university.

It wasn't just the way that God had answered Tim's prayers over the years that got me choked up.

While we were students at the seminary, a small revival had broken out at the university - similar to the one that got nationwide attention there about a year ago.

I had gone down to check it out - in the very same sanctuary where I sat Friday morning - and the Lord had met me there in a powerful way.

That night began a journey where God put right some things in my life that had been completely out of order - things which had destroyed my self-esteem and my self-respect so much that I had given up hope of ever finding a woman to share life with.

In fact, I turned 30 while I was a student at Asbury Seminary and a platonic friend, Sarah, had surprised me with a mock wedding in a shelter house on the edge of campus. (I could see the exact spot from my window this past week.)

We had joked earlier that if we were both still single when I hit 30, we would just go ahead and marry each other. Sarah had come out to the shelter house that evening in a borrowed wedding dress!

And now look at my life 25 years later.

I could not have even imagined having a wife I love as much as I love Melissa. I could not have imagined the adventures we've had together in raising a family and serving the Lord. I could not have imagined having four talented and beautiful children like Caleb, Hannah, Samuel, and Sarah.

God has a plan. And God is good. 

All the time.

And even as I sat there Friday morning, I had an overwhelming sense that the best is yet to be. 

Who knows what God has in store for the next 25 years!

P.S. I do not mean to leave Jamie out of the discussion of what God has done in our lives over the past 25 years since we were classmates. For His own reasons, God has given Jamie the grace to walk in singleness. The family dynamics for Tim and me are only the most outwardly visible markers of God's work in our lives, but for all three of us, the Lord has shown Himself faithful these past years in giving us lives of fulfilling Kingdom ministry. And for all three of us, the best is yet to be!