marriage – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

April 9, 2026April 9, 2026

Promising Outcomes

*Note to my Dear readers. My weekly postings here are, as of today’s entry, drawing to a close. At least for the present. I cannot adequately express my gratitude for your faithfulness in journeying with me on this more than ten-year journey. Meanwhile, as I continue in the writing craft (focusing for now on reviewing and editing unpublished content), I request and treasure your prayers. A big thanks to all who have left comments on the jerrylout blog entries along the way. Each one has brought wind to the sails. Bless you! Please consider shooting your email address to me if you would like to receive our ‘Jerry and Ann Updates’, which go out monthly. In due time, God willing, further hard copy and e-book publications will be announced. Stay tuned. Warmly in Christ, Jerry

Over our years of marriage, Ann and I have spent a lot of time in each other’s company. We routinely live our lives in an almost continuous state of interaction. We eat together. We travel together (whether to Aldis or to Africa,). We share the same lodging arrangements. We pray together. We talk. We joke and laugh with one another.

Ann and I grieve together – consoling, comforting one another (words not always required), in seasons of pain or of sorrowing loss.

As with most husband-wife relationships, Ann and I have grappled with and navigated through plenty of the differences that mark us as distinct individuals. We still grapple at times. Some of the differences that characterize us could be easily detected by any third-party observer. But the fact that we are unique and that we differ from one another in plenty of ways, does not threaten our commitment in walking this journey together. The vows we voiced to one another long ago (before the coming of children, and of grands, and of great grands) remain current. Our pledge, by God’s grace, holds fast and remains as binding as ever.

Many couples find that rhythms of simply being in each other’s lives do factor in, helping to establish and reinforce their lasting bond. One that even mirrors the spirit and language of the marriage covenant itself. Through grace.

So, we meet the encouraging principle again. In grace, healthy, routine practices, undertaken in good faith translate somehow into “training”.

Where a well-tended garden is stewarded under the care of a seasoned gardener, fruitbearing happens.

March 19, 2026

Training Wheels

“A happy marriage is built on love, trust, and the ability to pretend you didn’t hear that last comment.”

A quip from an esteemed Indian author* can lighten the mood when considering the challenging union called married life.

The training process factors into much of the arenas of life.

Once our “I dos” and “I wills” were offered and the rings assigned their respective homes on appropriate fingers, my eighteen-year-old bride and I were off to the church fellowship hall.

It was in this warm, festive environment that I gained my first appreciation for smiles in their affects on facial muscles. From the nonstop smiling. . . toward photographer and camera – toward well-wishers – toward happy gift-givers as we opened yet another brightly-wrapped present. Hours passed before my face returned to its natural, “unfrozen” posture.

Good and Long marriages are characterized by just that. Long. Ann and I would learn that we had embarked upon a lengthy journey marked by pleasure and pain, conflict and harmony.

Long celebrations –long excursions (Montana, Texas, Africa, etc.) – long conversations (some marked with tension). One fellow presumably confided, “Me and my lady, we have never argued; we have, however, had some loud discussions”.

Days and weeks and years of learning. Whether married or single, a person discovers that life itself becomes it own trainer.

As a grateful spouse in these sunset years, I count myself still a novice in becoming the “ideal groom” to the bride from my youth. God has honed and formed and grown us both through our years together – all the way up till now – training wheels yet in place.

May 18, 2023May 18, 2023

Of Being Owned

Living our lives day by day in closeness to Jesus calls for desire. And intention.

Just like any healthy marriage motoring right into the sunset years, both parties – the man and the woman – make numberless small but significant choices. All along the journey each of them has grown into the habit of offering up expressions of worth and honor, the one to the other. This is the nature of what the Father had in mind in the covenant relationship – man wedded to the woman, woman wedded to the man.

In similar manner, the intentional and deliberate follower of Christ routinely offers up to him both actions and words. Expressions of love are core. It is this that sets the disciple apart. The casual Christian, meanwhile, may content himself with an occasional nod to a religious creed.

Priorities

That boy or girl, man or woman who’s growing in Christ is assured of belonging to him. They do not fear losing the relationship. Jesus their savior has redeemed them from the old kingdom of ego where Self sat perched atop the me-centered throne of the heart.

While secure in his everlasting hope, the disciple set on Christlikeness is one who is not content to merely qualify for the ‘someday upward flight’ to the afterworld. The apprentice counts the value tag of his life as a thing reflecting a far more expansive aim. While the afterlife destination means much to him, the love-smitten apprentice aspires less to owning heaven than to being owned by heaven.

May 4, 2023May 4, 2023

Yield Signs

Jesus knows us in closeness. It’s something akin to what we witness in those enduring marriages we most admire. The envy of-the-world ones.

An aged couple, having grown deeper and deeper into oneness with each other over time present a heartwarming picture. It gives substance to a special word of endearment. Companionship. While other couples speak sorrowfully of having “grown apart”, our two love birds only solidify their union, growing fused as one over their long marital journey. Why is this?

It is not because the two have been spared struggles and hardships. Indeed, intense pain and even trauma may mark such a couple’s history together. After all, what long-term marriage has not weathered some harsh, distressing storms?

Yet, in spite of everything, a mystery seems to be in play. Where deepening, loving companionship ends up actually flourishing – not just surviving. When broad-sided by overwhelming hardship, a surprising number of devoted couples emerge the other side with their marriage not only intact, but healthier than ever!

Marriage – especially Christ-focused marriage – illustrates well (though imperfectly) the beauty of the Christian life. Such a life grows and flourishes in close fellowship with Jesus, issuing from his own tested and proven love.

Every earnest bride who ever pledged “in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse” made the discovery along the way that vows are made for testing.

Likewise, the broad-smiling groom at the altar offering his pledge to love, cherish, protect. . . soon discovers he has entered a long and challenging learning curve.

Adapt – adjust – accommodate.

Married-life language shouts change. The words are marked by tangible elements of sacrifice. They strike at the heart of a wonderful and frightening movement toward growth – the yielding up or adapting of personal will.

And so it is for the Lord’s beloved ones – the love-smitten, fresh-launched followers of Christ. Their pledge is simple, yet sacrificial. Not shallow, not flippant. The pledge is weighty, and glorious. An all-out love-fueled – and practiced – surrender,

“Your will be done”.

May 26, 2018

Arrangement

My bride-to-be nearly drowned. She was young at the time, just hours old.

“Mr and Mrs. Barnes, the risks are high. To our knowledge no baby has made it through long-term. But the surgery is the only chance your little girl has.”

Earl and Mary had little time to think it over. A surgical team gathered and a T. E. Fistula repair was scheduled. The life of Alice Ann Barnes – her full body weight shy of five pounds – hung in the balance.

T.E. stood for Tracheosophageol. Sadly, the baby’s esophagus and trachea were defective at birth. Designed to transport her mother’s milk into her stomach, Ann’s esophagus mingled with her air-tube. Thus, any nutrition-rich fluids were sent to her lungs, not her stomach. In 1949 the field of medicine had its limits. Without corrective surgery, death by drowning or malnutrition would likely result.

Anesthetics were administered, their effects carefully watched. The surgeon’s knife found entrance into little Ann’s back. The procedure was underway.

Hours passed as anxious parents waited.

“Her vitals are steady.” Intensive care nurses – hours into post-op – kept a close watch on little Ann. Some likely prayed.

December, 1967. The former pediatrics patient – poised, lovely in her white gown – moved along the church sanctuary’s center aisle and to her waiting groom.

***

Our courtship, Ann’s and mine, had largely played out by long distance – spanning twelve hundred miles and two-and-a-half years. First by old-fashioned letters. Then with my Oklahoma-to-Montana phone calls.

The marriage wasn’t arranged by third-party players, but neither did we magically fall in love. We grew toward one another through the modest media of stationery paper and ballpoint ink, radial-dial phones with long-distance lines transporting two distinctly different accents – one from just south of Canada, the other a stone’s throw from Texas.

We had survived, each of us, our childhood crises of health. To one day embark, united, on a journey unlike any we could have dreamed.

An arranged marriage, one might say. By providence.