Do You Want to Dance?

 This is a sermon I attempted to preach on August 2.  I’m having voice issues, so I was not able to complete this sermon, but this is the way I intended it to be heard.

 

If you asked Joyce how she was doing anytime during the last six months of her life, she would respond by looking at me and saying, “Tell them how many years we have been married!”

 

She was proud of the fact that we were married over 47 years, especially considering the fact that so many people had said it would not last.  

 

This Friday, August 7, would have been our 48^th wedding anniversary.  It will be a difficult day.  But I’ve had many difficult days.  It has been almost 6 months now, 6 months since Joyce passed away.  

 

In his book, “Lament for a Son," Nicholas Wolterstorff, talks about the uniqueness of each death and the solitude of suffering.  We say to people, “I know how you are feeling,” but we don’t, even if we are walking down the same road.  

 

I want to talk about grief from the perspective of the Psalms.  There are three movements in the Psalms: “Orientation” “Disorientation” and “New Orientation.”  

 

Orientation is the way life is supposed to be.  A great example is the 8^th Psalm: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth.  When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and stars which thou hast ordained”.  

 

For most of our life together, we lived in the orientation of life, the way life was supposed to be.  We had a very happy marriage, we served three loving churches, we have a great family, 4 children, 5 grandchildren, one great-grandchild. . . wonderful friends . . . life was good. 

 

But we know how quickly life can descend from orientation to disorientation.  Psalm 22 is a Psalm of Disorientation.  It opens with the words: “My God, My God why have you forsaken me.”  You recognize the words Jesus uttered on the cross.  

 

We suddenly find ourselves in the valley of darkness . .  sickness, tragedy, brokenness, suffering, disease, death 

 

But the Psalms also promise a new orientation .   “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”  

 

23^rd Psalm contains all three movements:  Green Pastures, still waters, paths of righteousness . . . life the way it is supposed to be. But then it descends to the valley of the shadow of death . . . disorientation

 

But I want you to note the wording; yea though I walk through the valley . . the promise is that we will emerge from the valley one day into a new orientation . . . a table is prepared, my cup runneth over, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.  The new orientation is a gift from God.  

 

One of the painful realities of grief is the realization that life will never be the same … new orientation is not a return to the life that we knew, it is a new way of life, one that we have never experienced before, a new reality that is akin to a resurrection.  

 

Six months after losing Joyce I have not arrived at the new orientation.  I often find myself in the darkness.  It takes a long time to walk through the valley—months, even years. But I am moving, ever so slowly, I am moving to the source of light knowing that new orientation cannot be planned or predicted. I don’t know when I will get there, but God will surprise me as he always does.

 

Joyce’s death now defines my life.  I have not gotten over her death, and in many ways I never will . . .  and that is okay, for Joyce is now my inspiration, my motivation.  She inspires me to live my life with renewed purpose and to honor her by serving God and serving others.

 

 As I continue my pilgrimage through the valley, here are a couple of observations.

 

I am lonely, but I am not alone.  My friend, Curtis Leonard who lost his wife to dementia said simply, “It is lonely.” If you go into a restaurant they will ask, how many? “One,” I will say.  “One, just one?” will be the reply.  When I walk into my house there is just one.

 

But while I am lonely, I am not alone, because I have the most wonderful church family and I live in a great community.  A lot of people don’t like small towns because they say everyone knows you and they know your business.   I have a whole town who knows me and they know my business, and they are supporting me and praying for me.  People I don’t even know will stop me at times and tell me that they are praying for me.

 

I cannot begin to tell you what my church family, has meant to me.  You have been there for me, you were there for Joyce, and you continue to be there for me. 

 

Life is a gift.  John Claypool, who lost his little 4 year-old daughter to leukemia, was finally able to come to terms with her death by realizing that her life, short as it was, was a gift.  He said, “I did not deserve her for a single, day, but I had the gift of her life for 4 years.”

 

I have been so blessed.  Joyce and I had 47 wonderful years together.  When you first enter the valley, you are consumed by the pain of what you have lost.  But as you begin to emerge from the valley, you can focus on the blessing of what you had.  I realize that not only was her life a gift, but my life is a gift from God and I want to use the time I have left to God’s glory

 

Since Joyce died I have been listening to Country Music.  Country Music speaks to the soul, it if full of stories of pain, brokenness and loss.  One day, shortly after Joyce died, I heard a Garth Brooks song, "The Dance."  It tore me out of my frame.

 

Joyce loved to dance.  One of the biggest regrets of my life is that I never learned how to dance.  Joyce tried her best, but she could never teach me to dance.  Once she enrolled me in a dance class without my knowledge!  I went, but it did not turn out well.

 

In the final months of her life, Joyce would often say, “Do you want to dance?”  She could be sitting in her chair, early in the morning, middle of the night . . . we went through a long period of her not sleeping much at all . . . but she wanted to dance.

 

At Abbotts Creek one day, (the rehab center) I was trying to get her to stand up, just so I could help her pivot and sit in her wheelchair, I finally said to her, “Do you want to dance?”  

 

She was able to stand, I held her close, but she could not dance, And I knew then, it was too late.  It would be soon be over.

 

Lookin' back on the memory of
The dance we shared beneath the stars above
For a moment all the world was right 
How could I have known that you'd ever say goodbye?

 

And now, I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end, the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could've missed the pain
But I'd had to miss the dance

 

I want to always keep Joyce’s memory alive.  In the Apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, there is a beautiful hymn titled, “In Honor of our Ancestors.”  One line reads, “Their bodies are buried in peace, but their name lives on generation after generation.”

 

Marty Stanbery, who serves as our organist and pianist, is also a gifted quilter. Marty made a beautiful quilt for me in memory of Joyce.  It has my initials and Joyce’s initials.  It has a couple of sayings from a sermon I preached shortly after Joyce’s death.  “Eyes blinded by tears cannot see the stars,” and “Love never dies.”  But it also has the picture of the baptism in the Jordan River from 2018 when I baptized Joyce.  I don’t know how Marty got the picture on the quilt, but it is a beautiful tribute to Joyce.

 

The quilt has found a permanent home on Joyce’s side of our bed.  I will keep it there to honor her and to keep her memory with me every night and day. And I know that Joyce will always be with me.   She will continue to inspire me to be the best person I can be.  And I am sure that when we do meet again on that heavenly shore, the first question she will ask me will be, “Do you want to dance?”                         

Do You Want to See the Launch?

 On February 20, 1962, one week before my eighth birthday, my daddy woke me up very early with the words, “Do you want to see the launch?”

 

He only had to say it once.  I immediately jumped out of bed and ran into the den where our Philco television was tuned to the local CBS station and Walter Cronkite was broadcasting from Cape Canaveral.  John Glenn was already in the capsule of Friendship 7, high atop the big Atlas rocket.  He was about to become the first American to orbit the earth.

 

I knew all about the space program.  I could name the Mercury Seven, the first American astronauts selected by NASA.  Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton.  

 

At one time I wanted to be an astronaut, but I couldn’t ride a roller coaster without getting sick.  After I read about the rigorous training the astronauts went through, I thought I better choose a safer profession.   Maybe I could be a fireman.  

 

We lived 30 miles from Huntsville, Alabama, where the former German scientist, Wernher von Braun, had developed the Redstone Rocket that sent Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom on short sub-orbital flights.  

 

I had classmates whose fathers worked for von Braun and the space program in Huntsville.  Our next-door neighbor was von Braun’s personal secretary.  When they tested the Redstone rockets in Huntsville, we could hear the sound and feel the ground shake.  The space program was close and personal.

 

Daddy had told me that I would be able to see the launch before I went to school that morning, but some delays pushed the launch time back until almost 9 a.m. Central Time.  Daddy had to go to work, but Mother told me that I could be late going to school in order to see the launch.  Over half of my class was late that morning!

 

I went to school with the strange knowledge that a man was actually in outer space, orbiting over us around the earth.  When we went outside for recess, we all looked up into the sky, thinking we might even see him.  Little did we know that our hero was having unexpected problems in space.

 

During Glenn’s second orbit a faulty sensor indicated that the all-important heat shield was loose. After his third orbit he started the critical process of re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere.  If the heat shield failed, Glenn would not survive. (It is an urban legend that Glenn was initially scheduled for seven orbits.  The plan was always for 3 orbits)  

 

NASA kept the seriousness of the situation away from the public.  But Walter Cronkite and the other reporters had been educated on the risks of re-entry.  Even without a faulty heat shield, it was a dangerous endeavor. 

 

Mr. Gilbert, our jittery school principal, decided that we needed to witness this historic event.  He set up the school’s only television, a black and white model with rabbit ears, in the school auditorium.  Then all the kids were herded into the same auditorium my grandfather had known as a student, told to be quiet and watch the space ship come back to earth.  I wanted to tell Mr. Gilbert that it was a capsule, not a space ship, but thought better of it.

 

Twenty months later we would all be herded back into that same auditorium with the same television and the same Walter Cronkite to watch the tragic events coming out of Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.

 

John Glenn came safely back to earth and it was only later that we learned how close he came to perishing.  We all cheered when Walter Cronkite told us that John Glenn was safe aboard a Navy ship.  

 

I watched every Nasa mission in the Mercury and then the Gemini programs.  And then came the Apollo missions that were launched by the powerful Apollo Saturn V rockets designed by none other than Wernher von Braun.

 

Fifty-seven years ago, on July 20, 1969 I was watching as Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon with the words, “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.”

 

But there was nothing like February 20, 1962.  When I visit the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, I always make my first stop the Friendship 7 capsule that carried John Glenn into space and after three orbits around the earth, safely back home.  When I look at that capsule I can hear my Daddy’s voice saying, “Do you want to see the launch?”

 

 

May There Be No Mourning of the Bar, When I Put Out To Sea

 “The sea is as near as we come to another world.”      

              (From “North Sea off Carnoustie” by Anne Stevenson)

 

Joyce loved the beach.  She grew up 30 miles from Emerald Isle.  She loved to Shag.  She would talk about gigging for flounder.  Sadly, she married a preacher who would choose the mountains over the beach, never learned to Shag and had never heard of gigging for flounder.  

 

When we lived in Pollocksville, we were very close to the beach.  Fresh seafood was just a short drive away.  We could go to the beach for a morning or an afternoon.  When we moved to Roxboro, Joyce missed the beach.  

 

Our physician and good friend, Dr. Thomas Long, had a condo at North Myrtle Beach.  He was always willing to rent the condo to us at a discounted price.  Every summer we would take the family to the beach condo on the second week of August.  We would have the car packed and leave as soon as church was over on Sunday.  We would return home the following Sunday.  Joyce loved our annual trip to the beach.  

 

When we moved to Lexington, we didn’t go to the beach very often.  The children were growing up and Joyce and I started to travel internationally.  I served on the Board of Directors for our Baptist camp in Belize and we would travel to Belize at least once a year for the annual board meeting.  We would always spend a couple of days on an island where we enjoyed the Palm Trees and white sand of the beautiful Caribbean Sea.   Even so, Joyce would say, “I miss the beach.” She was talking about her beach, Carolina beaches.  

 

We traveled to the beach several times in recent years.  We were invited to preach at the Emma Anderson Memorial Chapel at Topsail Beach for a couple of years.  The church invites a different minister each week and provides a beautiful, small beach cottage.  The first year we went, Joyce really enjoyed it.  We walked on the beach.  We enjoyed the seafood.  We took in gorgeous sunrises and sunsets.  

 

Dementia was starting to close in by the next year.  Joyce didn’t want to leave the cottage.  If I left to go walking, she would become very anxious.  She did not want to walk on the beach. That was when I realized her dementia was advancing quickly. 

 

In November of 2024, Jerry Beamer’s father died and Joyce and I drove to Mt. Airy for his funeral.  Jerry’s son, Colin, introduced us to his fiancé and told us that they were getting married the next summer on the Outer Banks.  Joyce quickly stated that we planned to attend.  This was Colin, one of our very special young people whom we had known his entire life, and secondly, it was going to be at the beach. 

 

We made the drive to Duck, North Carolina, in June for the wedding.  Joyce loved seeing so many of the young people that we had worked with at the church.  She danced with Jerry.  She delighted in all of the beautiful highlights of the wedding.  

 

The wedding was at the Sanderling Resort in Duck.  Following the ceremony, we witnessed one of those breathtaking sunsets over the sound.  It would be the last sunset Joyce would ever see at the beach.  

 

We left the next morning, never to return to the beach again.  

 

A few weeks ago, Ray Nance asked me if I wanted to go with him and his family to the beach.  They were going to the Outer Banks, to Frisco.  We left Monday morning.  It is a long drive, but six hours later we arrived at the rental house on the beach. 

 

Ray Nance, Sang, and Ella Rae went to the beach every morning.  They would spend several hours in the water and sand.  Then they returned to walk on the beach each night.

 

I did some walking on the streets, but mainly stayed at the house, catching up on some reading.  It was great to be with them.  We played Scrabble, Monopoly, and Life.  Ray Nance and Sang prepared the meals.  It was a very good week. 

 

I wanted to go to the beach at least once, so on Tuesday night I told them that I would go to the beach with them.  It was dark.  We had flashlights.  We climbed over the sand dune and I saw the powerful ocean pounding the beach in front of me.  

 

Once on the beach, I decided to wade out into the water.  As I did with the wind blowing and the waves pounding, I felt Joyce’s presence.  She had always told me there was something very special about the beach.  There was a power, a mystique that one cannot easily explain, but suddenly I got it.  I knew what Joyce was trying to tell me.  

 

I could feel her standing beside me, holding my hand, looking out into the majestic sea.  Then the tears started to flow.  Suddenly, I was alone and the pain of loneliness overcame me. 

 

I don’t know how long I was standing there, but I felt another presence.  My granddaughter, Ella Rae, walked over and stood beside me, placing her arm around me.  No words were spoken, no words were needed.  

 

Ray Nance asked me if I wanted to talk about it.  “No,” I said.  But then I added, “You know she loved the beach.”

 

Sunset and evening star,

      And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

      When I put out to sea,

 

   But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

      Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

      Turns again home.

 

   Twilight and evening bell,

      And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

      When I embark;

 

   For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

      The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

      When I have crost the bar.

 

                      (“Crossing the Bar” by Alfred Lord Tennyson)

Joyce's Pecan Pie

 

Many years ago, way down south in LA (Lower Alabama), I acquired a deep appreciation for the delightful cultural practice of “Dinner on the Grounds.”

 

Now days, churches hold pristine “covered dish dinners” in an air-conditioned fellowship hall with store bought potato salad and KFC chicken.  But back in the day, Dinner on the Grounds was literally on the grounds and nothing was store bought.  Many churches had permanent outdoor tables and shelters—they were serious about Dinner on the Grounds. 

 

It seems that we only have our “covered dish dinners” once or twice a year for a church picnic or other special event.  Back in the day they didn’t need a special occasion to hold a Dinner on the Grounds, they held them frequently.  But when Revival time rolled around or the annual Homecoming, that was when Dinner on the Grounds escalated from “good” to “Glorious!”

 

It was enough just to attend these fine outdoor feasts.

Most of the funeral directors were invited to every church for such occasions, and they never missed.  But when you were the guest preacher; well, then you were treated like royalty.  

 

Every church has their legendary cooks and each one has a special dish that is mandatory for the visiting preacher to sample. Whether it be chicken and dumplings, deviled eggs, squash casserole, fried chicken, banana pudding, chocolate pie, pecan pie or pound cake, I quickly learned that all I needed to do was step back and the ladies would bring the food to me. 

 

You don’t see that as much anymore, but there are still a few legendary cooks who will bring their special dishes to the church picnic.  And one of those was my wife, Joyce, who would always bring a pecan pie to every church meal.  

 

Everyone knew about Joyce’s pecan pie.  A few years ago, when the youth were raising money for a mission trip, Joyce’s pecan pie sold for several hundred dollars.  She enjoyed telling that story.  

 

We were eating out in Greensboro one night.  The lady at the table next to ours was bragging about the fact that her cake brought $50 at her church auction.  Joyce couldn’t wait.  She interrupted them, looked at me and said, “Tell them how much my pecan pie brought at our church!”

 

The truth is that it was not Joyce’s pecan pie.  It was my Aunt Ruth’s, my mother’s older sister.  

 

Years ago, we traveled to Alabama for a family funeral. 

Aunt Ruth brought a pecan pie to the house.  When Joyce tasted the pie, she immediately asked Aunt Ruth for the recipe.  Aunt Ruth said that she did not give out her recipe.  

 

Joyce pleaded with her, telling her that she had never tasted a pecan pie so good.  Finally, Aunt Ruth relented.  She told Joyce that she would give her the recipe on one condition: that she never give the recipe to anyone else.  

 

Joyce agreed and she was true to her promise.  Through the years people have tried to get the recipe from Joyce, but she would never tell them.

“Aunt Ruth made me promise,” she would say.  I would sometimes remind Joyce that Aunt Ruth had been dead for years, but it did not matter.  A promise is a promise and Joyce always kept the promise.  

 

Aunt Ruth sat down at a table in my mother’s house with an 8 ½ by 11 sheet of white paper and wrote the recipe from memory.  Joyce kept the original manuscript in Aunt Ruth’s handwriting.  She placed it in a plastic cover and always used it when making a pie. You could tell Aunt Ruth never used a recipe for the pecan pie.  There were several ingredients that she was not sure how much she used.  She wrote “2 or 3 tablespoons.” “1 or 1 ½ cups”. 

 

One word that really dated my aunt was “Oleo.”  Joyce knew that Oleo meant butter.  Oleo was often used in older cookbooks.  It was a substitute for butter made from vegetable oil that was less expensive.  Oleo comes from the Latin word, oleum (oil).

 

Joyce had tweaked the recipe and added her own notes to clarify the inconsistencies, the largest one was the amount of time you baked the pie in a 350-degree oven.  Aunt Ruth put 35 to 50 minutes.  Joyce wrote 40 Mins.  But she always checked it after 40 minutes and then cooked it another 2 to 3 minutes. 

 

Anyone who knew Joyce quickly learned that if you asked for a piece of pi-KAHN pie, she would correct you and make you ask for PEE-can pie.  The irony was that for Aunt Ruth and my mother, it was always pi-KAHN pie.

 

It did not take long for Joyce’s pecan pie to reach the legendary status of Minnie Banks’ chocolate pie.  People would go to the dessert table first, to make sure they would get a piece of the rare delicacies.  

 

As time went on, Joyce would bring her pie and place it on the dessert table.  Then she would make her rounds to make sure certain people knew to go get a piece of the pie right now . . . they did . . . and the pie would be gone before the blessing. 

 

But then Joyce started to do something that concerned me. She would bring her pecan pie to the church and hide it in the kitchen.  Then she would tell certain people to meet her in the kitchen for a piece of the pie.  

 

I told Joyce that she could not do that.  “Everyone should have an equal chance to get a piece of the pie,” I said.  But she didn’t pay any attention to me.  It was not until later that I realized what was going on.  

 

Part of dementia is paranoia.  Joyce was afraid that something would happen to her pie, so she hid it in the kitchen.  Her pecan pie was special.  She wanted to protect it.  It makes perfect sense now.

 

In her later years, Joyce started having trouble making the pie.  One time she didn’t add salt.  Another time she left out the vanilla.  I started being in the kitchen with her, holding Aunt Ruth’s original recipe, to make sure all of the ingredients were added.  

 

Gradually, she depended on me more and more; to measure the syrup, to beat the eggs, to add the sugar and flour. Soon, I was making the pie while Joyce watched with a blank stare.  

 

We have a church picnic, “a covered dish,” the last Sunday of July.  I plan to make one of Joyce’s pecan pies.  I will carefully follow Aunt Ruth’s handwritten recipe, along with Joyce’s edits.  I will use butter, not Oleo.  I will bake it for 42 minutes.  I promise not to hide it in the kitchen.  But I will insist on one thing, that you pronounce it correctly---PEE-can, not pi-KAHN.  Joyce never made a pi-KAHN pie.  

 

 

If I had Found the Box, I Might Have Found My Father

 

This is a Father's Day Post from 2015.  

 I wish I could call my father on Father’s Day and tell him what a great dad he was. Daddy died in 1998.  Like King David, he was a man after God’s own heart.  A respected church and civic leader, my father was a man to be admired.  But also like King David, my father was a flawed man and sadly, that was all I could see in his last years.  

        When I was ordained in 1977 I asked the man I admired the most to speak at the service—my father.  He had always been a leader in the church and was a good public speaker.  I remember Daddy being the speaker on “Men’s Day” when I was a child.  He told a story about taking the family to the State Fair and somehow in the big crowd he lost me.  He said when we are lost God always comes searching for us and he described the great joy in finding his son and holding him in his arms. I remember it well and can still recall the fear of being lost as well as the elation of seeing my father.  

        I had a wonderful, happy childhood.  Daddy was everything a father is supposed to be.  But after I left home to go to school everything changed.

         We all have flaws and demons are relentlessly lurking in the shadows.  The demon of alcoholism invaded my father and suddenly I didn’t know him anymore.  I was devastated and felt betrayed.  My father was lost and that was when I made a tragic mistake.  I did not try to find him.  

        After Daddy died, I went to my childhood home to clean out the attic.  The attic in our home was not designed for storage, but that is what had happened. There is one opening through the ceiling of the garage that is only accessible with a tall ladder.  When I entered the attic it was like stepping back in time.  Toys from our childhood, gadgets of every kind, and even an old aluminum Christmas tree filled the crowded space.  As I was carefully removing everything I saw a lone, isolated box at the far end. It was obvious that it had been placed far away from everything else.  I decided to wait and remove the box last.  What was it?  Why was it placed in such an inaccessible place?  There had to be a reason.

        After several days I made my last trip up the ladder and carefully brought the box down.  I opened it to reveal an olive green US Army coat.  I carefully laid the coat on the back patio as it saw the sunlight for the first time in decades.  It still had my father’s Master Sergeant  insignia on the sleeves.  

        Daddy served in the Korean War.  Like most veterans he didn’t talk about it.  He always said he didn’t see much action.  But when I found that box and opened it I realized that it contained much more than just an old army coat. 

        So often in life we only see someone’s faults and failures.  We can’t find the real person because they are lost.  The key to finding them is discovering the reason they strayed.  It is often an experience that was too overwhelming, too devastating for them to deal with.  War has destroyed many lives.  So has betrayal, a devastating trauma, a broken relationship, or the death of someone we love.  

        My father and I still had a cordial relationship, but it was not the same.  Then he became ill.  He called me one day and asked me to speak at his funeral.  I made a visit to see him and for the first time in years he was my daddy again.  I realized as I walked out of the door that he had always been there, but I had not worked hard enough to find him.  It was the last time I ever saw him.

        I wish I had searched for my father the way he searched for me.  I wish I had found the box sooner.  If I had found the box, I might have found my father.  If I had found my father I would have experienced the same joy I had as a child when my father found me and held me in his arms.  

Divinely Ordained in the Stars

   October 16, 1977 is a watershed date for me.  That was the day I preached a “Trial Sermon” at the Pollocksville Baptist Church.  

 

The little Eastern North Carolina church was full that Sunday and the atmosphere was electric.  “Biggest crowd we’ve had in years,” people said. 

 

I felt the excitement and the warm welcome from this loving congregation.  Following the worship service, we had a covered dish meal.  The food was delicious although I barely had time to eat.  People wanted to meet me, to talk to me, to welcome me.  I remember a very expectant mother telling me her baby was due any day now.  She gave birth to a little boy the next day.  

 

I also remember a young lady who said, “Hello, my name is Joyce, and this is my husband, Ernie.”  And I remember a little girl named Paula Lynn asking me if I was going to be their next “teacher.”  

 

Even though the church would not vote on me until the next Sunday, it seemed like a formality.  I sensed an immediate connection with those folks, they felt like family.  And I think they felt the same about me.  

 

I should have expected people to be matchmakers.  That’s what they do with a young, single preacher.  A couple of years before, I had preached a revival up on Sand Mountain in Alabama.  Each night of the revival a different family invited me for dinner, and each family had an unmarried daughter about my age.  They would make sure I would sit beside their lovely daughter at the meal.  It seems that all of these young ladies had recently received a calling to be a preacher’s wife. But when I left Sand Mountain, I was still a single man.  

 

As it turned out, a member of the Pollocksville search committee also had an unmarried daughter about my age, but she didn’t tell me about it.  She was insistent though that I stay with them until I could get some furniture in the parsonage.  

 

I discovered that they had a daughter early one morning.  It was still dark and I was walking across the hallway to the bathroom.  We were both in our pajamas.  Talk about awkward!

 

Finding a wife was definitely not part of my plan.  But God had a different plan. As the English poet William Cowper wrote, “God moves in a mysterious way.”

 

The Pollocksville Baptist Church voted unanimously to call me as their pastor on October 23, 1977.  When the committee chair called to tell me the good news, he said, “We have had a tragedy.”  

 

On Monday, October 17, the day after my trial sermon, Ernie Koonce took his small boat out on the Trent River.  It was the first day of hunting season.  It was his wife, Joyce, who had introduced me to Ernie at the church.  Ernie never came home.  By the time I heard about the unanimous vote, Ernie had been missing for six days.  

 

The next day I drove to Pollocksville.  I will never forget walking into Joyce’s home and seeing her standing in the hallway.  The stress of the last week was clearly visible.  She walked up to me and instinctively we hugged.  Then she said, “When they find his body, will you preach his funeral?”

 

I preached Ernie’s funeral the day before I preached my first sermon as pastor.  

 

My heart went out to Joyce and her children.  The entire church, the entire community were heartbroken.  I checked on her frequently to see how she was holding up.  Was there anything I could do to help?

 

I can’t tell you exactly when it happened, when my feelings for Joyce became more than just pastoral concern.  I don’t think it happened suddenly, it was gradual, but it was happening.  Joyce felt it too.  By late November she told me that I had done my duty as her pastor.  She was politely telling me not to see her anymore.  

 

But a couple of weeks later, Paula Lynn found me at church on Sunday morning.   “We are putting our Christmas tree up today,” she said.  “Why don’t you come and help us?”

 

When I showed up at the door, Joyce said, “What are you doing here?  I thought I told you that you had done your duty as pastor.”

 

But a little voice behind her said, “But Momma, I invited him.”   

 

It didn’t take people in the church long to realize that something was going on.  News travels fast in a small town.  

 

Christmas was on a Sunday that year.  I planned to leave after church and drive home to Alabama.  Before I left, Joyce and I talked.  The committee member, in whose house I had been staying, told me that I should not see Joyce anymore.  

 

“People are talking,” I said to Joyce.  “Maybe we should stop seeing each other.”  

 

That was a lonely Christmas Day.  I made the long drive to Atlanta and then turned west into Alabama.  I could not get Joyce off of my mind.  I stopped in Anniston to spend the night.  Late that Christmas night, I called Joyce.  

 

“I know what we said, but I can’t stop thinking about you.  I don’t want us to stop seeing each other.  I think I love you.”  

 

Things moved fast after Christmas and by now, everyone was talking!  Joyce’s father came storming into her house one day and said, “Do you know everybody in town is talking about you?  Why can’t you find somebody to date besides the damn preacher!”

 

One day the chair of the deacons came to see me.  “People are complaining,” he said. 

 

“About what?”

 

“They say that when they try to call you, you are never home.”  

 

I talked to the telephone company and they installed this neat device on my phone.  If I was going to see Joyce, I could switch the call so it would ring at Joyce’s house.  Most of the time when I would answer the phone at her house, they would hang up. But there were no more complaints about not being able to get in touch with me.

 

Many of the men in Pollocksville would gather at Clifton’s gas station on a Saturday night.  They would drink and gossip.  Joyce’s father walked in one Saturday night just in time to hear the father of the unmarried girl in her pajamas tell the guys that they had planned for me to marry their daughter, but Joyce had messed everything up by “going after the preacher.” 

 

By the way, I did marry their daughter.  It was a few years later.  I performed her wedding!

 

On Valentine’s Day, 1978, I gave Joyce a small necklace.  I told her that I could not afford a ring just yet, but I wanted her to marry me.  She immediately said it was too early.

 

I agreed, but said when the time was right, I wanted her to be my wife.  

 

She said yes.

 

We thought the talk would die down, but it did not.  It was becoming a major distraction.  Joyce’s birthday, April 9, was on a Sunday.  I decided to address the congregation.

 

I told them that I wanted to share something personal.  I said, “You called me to be your pastor and you are free to ask me to leave.  You all know that Joyce and I are seeing each other.  We think we love each other.  We would like to ask for your understanding as we seek God’s will for our lives.”  

 

That was the day that everything changed.  The talk slowed down.  For the most part, people moved on.  But the committee member with the daughter, the one in the pajamas, did not.  She cornered Joyce after church that Sunday and told her that she did not come from the right family to be marrying a preacher. She was not “good enough” to marry me.  Her words hurt.  Joyce never forgot them.  

 

I knew that it was time for us to decide if we wanted to marry or not.  Well-meaning people were telling me that I was making a big mistake, that I just felt sorry for Joyce.  I felt the need to talk to someone who was wise and trustworthy to give me some good counsel.  

 

Dr. Theodore Adams was one of the most distinguished and respected men in Baptist life.  He served as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia from 1936 to 1968.  He served as President of the Baptist World Alliance.  He had been on the cover of Time magazine. In 1978, he was serving as a Visiting Professor at Southeastern Seminary.  

 

He was kind and compassionate, a grandfatherly figure.  I made an appointment to meet with the great Dr. Adams.

 

I told him the whole story, about Joyce’s tragedy and how I had become very close to her.  I also told him about the uproar in the church and that I had even addressed it from the pulpit.  I listed all the reasons people were telling me that I should not marry Joyce.  She was seven years older.  She had three children.  She didn’t have the education that I had.  I was just feeling sorry for her.  

 

When I finished, the kindly Dr. Adams looked at me with an understanding smile and said, “Well, son do you love her?”

 

“Yes,” I said.  “I really do love her.”

 

“Well, what is stopping you?”

 

“But Dr. Adams, you know she is seven years older than me.”

 

At that he laughed a hearty laugh and said, “My mother was 10 years older than my father.  They had a remarkable love story, and you will too.”

 

I felt like I was walking on air when I left Dr. Adams’s office.  That appointment had been planned, but what happened next was an unplanned, serendipitous blessing.

 

Dr. John Carlton was our genteel, silver-haired Homiletics Professor.  His very presence exuded wisdom and decorum.  He spoke with a Shakespearean voice; his language was poetic and imaginative.  To hear him read from the King James Bible was to hear the Scripture sing.  

 

I shared the story and my visit with Dr. Adams.  Dr. Carlton listened with intensity.  I will never forget his response.

 

He had a habit of crossing his left arm over his chest, with his left hand cupping the elbow of his right arm.  He would take his index finger of his right hand to make an important point, or in this case, a proclamation.  

 

“Raaay,” he said with his melodious tone.  “This was divinely ordained in the stars.”  

 

A Papal Blessing could not have been more powerful.  

 

On Monday night, August 7, 1978, Paula Lynn, Della, and Knight walked us down the aisle of the Pollocksville Baptist Church.  When Rev. Donald Myers asked, “Who gives Joyce to be married to Ray,” Paula Lynn answered “I do.”  Then Della said “I do,” and Knight said “I do.”  

 

We were married on a Monday night because the deacons refused to give me another Sunday of vacation, even though it was my wedding.   But that was okay.  Seven was our special number and we were married on August 7 at 7 p.m.  

 

Dr. Adams was right, ours became a remarkable love story. Joyce wanted me to write a book about it . . .  maybe I will.

 

I used to tell Joyce that on average, women outlive men by seven years.  That means that we will both die at the same time.  But then came dementia.

 

As we neared the end, there were many things that Joyce had lost.  But whenever someone would ask Joyce how she was doing, she would look at me and say, “Tell them how many years we have been married!”

 

Joyce was my best friend.  She passed away at the Hospice House 48 years to the day I asked her to marry me, Valentine’s Day.  

When we celebrated Joyce's life at a packed First Baptist Church, Paula Lynn walked beside me into the sanctuary, just as she had 48 years before.  Della and Knight walked with us too, along with my two sons-in-law and my five grandchildren.  

 

They said our marriage would not last.  They said I just felt sorry for Joyce.  They pointed out that Joyce was seven years older and had three children.  But Joyce and I enjoyed over 47 years being husband and wife. We never stopped loving each other.  Of course we didn’t, because it was divinely ordained in the stars.