Cheers to 40 Years! The Gift of Marriage with special guest Bryan Melton
(Read below or Click Here to Listen to the Podcast)
“The LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’” Genesis 2:18 (NIV)
Hey friends!
Welcome to Episode 2 of the Sanctuary Stirrings Fall Series!
I’m so excited for you to join me for this episode where I had the chance to talk with the MOST IMPORTANT guest that I’ve ever had or will have on the program- my husband of 40 years, the one and only, Bryan Melton, to share his thoughts on the gift of marriage.
Part interview and part two-way conversation with my husband, former DJ, and the visionary behind the Sanctuary at Bear Creek. In this episode, you’ll get to know Bryan a little better, hear about the very different ideas about marriage we grew up with, and discover the miraculous—and slightly quirky!—story of how God brought us together.
In the times we’re living in, with its shifting ideas about gender, a decreasing percentage of people getting married, and fewer staying that way, it’s important to discuss:
Why did God create marriage?
What makes it such a gift?
What can happen when He brings us another person to journey through life with?
Click Here to Watch the Interview on YouTube
Then join us next week for Part Two, as we share the rest of the story —some of what we’ve loved and struggled with through 40 years of marriage —and how God joined our very different gifts around a shared Kingdom calling through the story of the Sanctuary at Bear Creek.
But God Was Already Rewriting the Story
I was 18, and he was 21.
It’s scary now, 40 years later, to think about those two young kids making such a big commitment.
We were naïve, delightfully so. We believed in marriage even though, in many ways, our childhoods should have convinced us otherwise.
I showed up one Sunday night at the church Bryan had grown up in. New in town, I’d come from 400 miles away to attend college. I thought I was coming to get a degree, but a much grander plan was already in motion.
Just five years earlier, a boyfriend asked me if I wanted to come to his Assemblies of God youth group. Head over heels infatuated and a little boy crazy, it sounded like a date—so of course I said yes!
I was astounded at what I found. The leaders prayed with passion, like they were actually having a conversation with Jesus — like they meant it. The group sang with all their heart about their relationship with God and how good He was--like they meant it. And when they talked about having a personal relationship with Jesus and, a few weeks later, asked if I wanted one too, I immediately said, “Yes!”
In that moment, everything changed.
I felt a weight lift off my heart that I didn’t even know I was carrying. I felt God's presence in me and knew He was right beside me. The next day, as I walked to school with my sister, I remember telling her--and just about everyone else I encountered for days afterward--what had happened, and that I was different.
And over the next five years, the Holy Spirit began healing my heart and reshaping what my life experiences had taught me was true with His truth.
You see, my family was a mess. My dad had died six months earlier after struggling with alcoholism. Although we had started attending church during the last five years of his life, Jesus wasn’t Lord of his life or our home, and our family wasn’t being shaped by Christian principles.
My dad was retired military and strict—sometimes incredibly harsh, particularly with my two stepbrothers. Both were kicked out of the house by the time they were 16 and have struggled deeply throughout their lives.
From the male examples I had known, when I came to the Lord, I questioned whether a man could truly be good. A very important person in my life had told me: “Lori, it’s not possible for a man to love one woman for a lifetime. So don’t expect that.”
Everything I'd experienced told me that was true.
But God was already rewriting the story.
He met a 13-year-old girl whose heart, mind, and spirit had been warped by life’s circumstances—and rescued me at the point where I was about to make some of the same destructive choices I had seen around me.
He gave me a powerful sense of His presence, a hunger to study his word, and five precious years--from eighth grade through twelfth-- to immerse myself in Him before stepping into the adult world.
I left for college with a renewed soul, planning to earn my nursing degree and eventually head to the mission field.
And that’s when I arrived at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.
Looking for a church to call home while I was away at school, I walked through the doors of the church Bryan had grown up in. And a few months later, I met the man God had for me to journey through life with.
At the time, I thought God had brought us together to raise a family and perhaps someday head to the mission field. But his plans were so much bigger than I understood. Through Bryan’s love, loyalty, and godliness, the Lord would continue healing the places deep within me that had once questioned whether a man could truly be good.
And to defeat the lie I had carried into adulthood--
"It's not possible for a man to love one woman for a lifetime."
With His miraculous truth. That it is!
Forty years later, by the grace of God, I know differently.
…
Our story isn’t unique. God is always working to bring people into our lives whom He uses for purposes far greater than we can see when we first meet them.
People who love us. People who challenge us. People who help us to heal deep inside and become more fully the people God created us to be.
He is so, so good!
Pause & Pray
Take a minute to sit with the Lord and ask:
What have my life experiences taught me about marriage, men, women, love, or relationships that You want to reshape through Your presence, Your Word, and other people?
Who have you placed in my life that you want to use to bring healing?
Resources Worth Noticing:
Worth Remembering:
“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone—we find it with another.”
Thomas Merton, Love and Living
Amen
So thankful to be walking together.
In His love,
Lori