I started my professional life as a beat reporter.
That means you cover an entire town for the newspaper. Everything about that town
from its police news to its town meetings.
It was the way most young reporters broke into the business back then.
I was young, dumb and very much single at the time.
They set up a special table at town meetings for the reporters. It gave you a great
vantage point to watch the town fathers in action. It also was a great vantage point
for me and my other single reporter friend to check out some of the town sisters in the
audience.
>From there, we could scope out the comings and goings of all the members of the
audience. And being young and dumb, we would evaluate and rate those of the opposite
sex entering that we thought to be attractive.
I now realize it was a very sexist and non-professional thing to do, but I did preface
this all by saying I was young and dumb....and single, which makes you even dumber on
occasion.
One particular night, both of our radar went off simultaneously. John Mathews worked
for a radio station but that made him no brighter or more professional than me, his dumb
newspaper colleague.
She was long and lean, and had an aloof air about her. We looked at each other.
He immediately told me, don't even think about going there, or whatever the phrase
was back in 1974. He told me my chances of meeting her were slim and none at
all. He even wanted to extend a wager in that direction. It was not a
financial thing, more of a challenge thing. He would take my notes for me for two
meetings if I succeed in what he deemed an unreachable star.
As I look back on this, I realize John and I were about as sensitive as two bull Moose in
a head-butting contest.
Rather than further expose my precarious past, let it suffice to say he ended up taking
notes for me and I discovered that you never judge a book by its cover. She was
attractive on the outside but even more attractive on the inside. She had a heart
almost too big for her own good, and she looked beyond the short comings of this new
found suitor to the good she figured had to be there somewhere inside. I did not take me
long to fall in love. To my surprise, she fell in love with me too.
That was the start of my life's journey with my wife Jan. That first meeting was
well over 25 years ago and this December, the marriage will officially hit the quarter
century mark. That is a long time to put up with a knucklehead such as myself.
It was just when she thought she had me pretty well figured out, (and that included
being scared when I went out on dangerous story assignments and being left behind, all too
often, when I hit the road with the band I toured with as lead singer) that I accepted the
call to the ministry. One more curve ball up and over the plate that she handled
well. Wives are never called with their husbands but God has a way of training the
pair up together for the work He has in store..
Throughout it all, she has stood tall beside me. Good days, bad days, days when we
hardly looked at one another and did not even speak. Like all couples there are a
lot of ups and downs in the ride of life. The important thing is does it appear you
are going to make it to the end together. Each day our ride gets just a little bit
better, the going a little smoother.
She has raised my daughter, washed my socks, cooked my dinner and seen sides of me,
of which I do not even want to glimpse the reflection. Now if someone asked me to
raise up a definition of a wife and Mother, I could from my heart and soul, raise up my
wife Jan as a living example.
Today, I waited until Jan was out of the house before I started writing. She
loves to look over my shoulder as my fingers begin to fly and God coaxes the words from
places I did not know even existed within me. I know her well enough to realize, she
will not be happy with me when she returns. She does not like it when I talk about
her.
But how can I finish a Mother's Day series without talking about the Mother who I spend
each and every day of my life with.
John no longer works for the radio station. I still work out of the same newspaper
office but I no longer go out on assignment, they have kicked me upstairs to corporate
where I take care of all their new media (spell that websites) for a half dozen or so
newspapers they own.
But somewhere in this great country, I should look John up and tell him I owe him a whole
lot of note taking. It was through his challenge and dare that I discovered a sure
bet.
God uses people to put things in the right place at the right time. John thought he
had a sucker's bet going on but the odds where long in my favor when he placed me in the
situation God wanted me to be in. And now, 25 years later, if such a thing is
possible, I love the special Mother in my house even more than I did when I first met her!
Happy Mother's Day to all of you who so proudly bear the title. It does not come to
you biologically, for most women can bear children, but it takes a special calling and a
special anointing from God to really be a Mother! For that, you need the Love
of Jesus and the patience of Job. Again I say, Happy Mother's Day.
