I’m in the San Francisco airport (a familiar spot), waiting to take the red-eye to Philadelphia for our board meeting and for ten days at the Home Office. I’m looking forward to being with the friends that I get to work with, but really my mind’s on RobAnne. We’ve been married thirty-five years, and we just completed our first month of being empty nesters. I’ve noticed that when people enter this stage of life, one of two things happens: either they drift apart or they drift together.

The interesting thing for us at this point is that the last two weeks of my life have been pretty much recovering from a kidney stone. I found last week that I could not work very hard, had a hard time concentrating, and was very tired. Maybe it was the anesthesia and maybe it was travel, but I just couldn’t get much done.

As we went through my illness together as a couple, RobAnne and I noticed a special bond in our relationship that we had not felt in a while. It was like we had just each other. We had our relationship with the Lord, and our confidence that the Lord was taking care of us, but in a real way, RobAnne was the support that I needed during this time. It seems that it should be natural that someone I have lived with for thirty-five years should be that way, but there’s something different in being an empty nester, something different about feeling the closeness of somebody you want to go home with.

I love RobAnne very much. I’m so thankful that she is the wife who gives me freedom to do ministry the way that God has directed us. Most of you know that RobAnne directed a very significant women’s ministry at Forest Home. She also started a preschool. She’s an administrative whiz. But I know her as my soulmate, and when you are with your soulmate and no one else is around, it doesn’t get much better than that.