And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone….” Gen. 2:18

We are looking ahead to the time when your children will be graduating high school, entering college, and hopefully finding themselves as mature adults in their early twenties. The real story right now is that so many of the twenty-somethings of today are having a hard time “finding themselves” and entering into responsible adulthood. Dr. Christian Smith is of the opinion that there is indeed something in the cultural drinking water of today’s world that is causing this. The first root cause he identified was the extension of educational pursuits well into the twenties. The second major phenomenon he identifies is the delay of marriage.

Rather than digress into a full discussion of the factors and influences at play in today’s culture, I will risk wearying you with my personal story. I do so because it highlights the differences between today’s cautious young adults and the way things were in our day. I met my wife to be during the second half of my senior year in college in 1966. She was a junior with one year yet to go. Love soon swept us along and during that summer we started thinking serious thoughts. Our engagement soon followed. But I was entering the army in September, and she would be going back to school. We sought and received the blessing of our family with a lot of unknowns in the wind. Linda’s Knoxville grandparents were so encouraging that they offered the use of their car and instructions on how to find the nearest justice of the peace just over the state line. Their generation was used to a more activist approach to marriage harking back to the day when congregations gathered in small country churches and the circuit rider would quiz his congregation to see if anyone wanted to get married at the end of the service. You could come down and get saved and married in one fell swoop.

We chose a family wedding, however. By then I was in the service stationed in Maryland while Linda was in school back in Illinois. I had a break in my training coming up in November so we planned a wedding. We were to either face periodic reunions over the next year or two as single adults needing a proper and respectable dating environment, or we could meet and live together as man and wife whenever time would allow. We chose marriage. I came home one weekend and was married the next. It was a simple church wedding with two attendants, and the ladies of the church pitched in and hosted a simple reception. It was a bare bones wedding but beautiful, and it got the job done. We had a one week honeymoon of sorts, and I flew back to Maryland. We were poor and did not even own a car between us. But we were happy and were able to spend Christmas together traveling unchaperoned to Philadelphia and Washington. Freedom!

I flew home that spring stopping for a few days on my way to Korea. After graduation, Linda flew to Korea right behind me having landed a job in Seoul working for Compassion. That began a several month odyssey where we lived separated by a two hour bus ride on weekends when the army was so inclined. Visits were confined to Saturday and Sunday. Linda had a room with missionaries and would occasionally spend an awkward weekend with me at my forward base where accommodations were crude and totally male. All total, it was a year and a half before we actually were able to live together under one roof as man and wife.

It was challenging, but we shared some incredible experiences together. Korea was rich in culture and adventure. We visited Japan on mid-tour leave and stopped through Hawaii on our way home. We would not trade that time together for anything. As a result, our motto is simply, “When it’s right, it’s right.” Marriage simplifies a lot of things and actually brings about the maturity that many today wistfully await before committing. We were 20 and 21 when married and even thought that kind of late compared to many high school friends. 47 years later it is still right.