Rob and I met the first week of College in 1984 in Allendale MI.  We both were in marching band and the day I saw him for the first time he was playing the piano.  I joke even 30 years later that I still remember as he walked out of the practice room I gave him a compliment “You are good”. His response was “No, just lucky”, and he walked away.

I remember standing in that hallway thinking “stuck up, upper class-man. I was just giving you a compliment”.  But I also still remember that he had on purple pants, a white with purple lines going lateral button up shirt, with a purple squared off knit tie and black pointy shoes. No, he did not make an impression on me.

I was getting ready to go to the movies with a few friends.  At the last minute everyone backed out except my ex-girlfriend.  Not wanting to go “on a date”, I suggested we go to the dorms to see if our friends from band wanted to go.  When we walked in to the dorm, there she was, I recognized her from band.  So we walked over to see if they too were headed to the movies.  To my luck they were so we all walked across campus together. When we got to the movies Meredith had walked in first and I last.  Waiting for the movie to start I looked down the row at the same time Meredith looked up the row.  I tried to introduce myself, but it was too noisy so I walked around to sit next to her. To my luck the movie started and I stayed down there with Meredith away from my ex-girlfriend who my friends were trying to set me back up with.  I invited Meredith and her group of friends back to my apartment.  During that night I found out that Meredith had to be up very early to make donuts for breakfast. I told her I was not letting her walk across campus alone in the wee hours of the morning and that I would be there to walk her.

That was the beginning of our now 30 years.

We started dating and by the first week of October we were engaged.  By January Meredith was pregnant and we got married in May.

There was only one problem…. we came from 2 totally different worlds…. and those worlds collided in the form of 2 affairs… one by Meredith very early in our marriage and the other by me after 12 years of marriage.G

We have struggled financially.  We have struggled in our relationship. We have struggled with rebellious children. We have just plain struggled BUT God … we did not let out of character behaviors destroy our Marriage. We fought and we fight daily.  Marriage gets to be monotonous and boring sometimes and that’s when Satan attacks the quickest and before you know it you are headed for divorce court and out for blood.

Our prayer is that our 30 years of going through the thick and thin will not only spare a marriage from ending but strengthen marriages that are dying.