My First Love - May 22, 2024

My An Arkie's Faith column from the May 22, 2024, issue of The Polk County Pulse.

In high school, I was too shy to talk to girls. I was almost too shy to talk to boys. When I first went to high school, it was at a private school that only went to the tenth grade. When I transferred to another school at the beginning of my junior year, the only people I would talk to were those I knew from my previous school.

Although I was too shy to talk to girls, that didn’t mean I wasn’t interested. At the beginning of my senior year, a girl stole my heart the first time she walked into Mr. Brost's history class. Because I was so shy, it was almost a year before she knew I was interested. 

I think that God knew that I needed all of the help I could get, so he made it so that our paths crossed in several ways that year. Mr. Brost selected five students to work together each week, producing learning packets for history class. The special girl and I were both in the group. We both worked at the local furniture factory. I worked on the dresser jig, and she made drawers. I would spend my breaks with the drawer makers, but she still didn't catch on.

Just before graduation, I lost my job at the furniture factory. I was accused of doing something I hadn’t done, and the punishment was a two-week suspension. I told management I was innocent, and if they persisted with the suspension, I would never be back. My sense of justice caused me to lose a good-paying summer job. 

News of my trouble with management quickly spread around the factory. When I picked up my personal items from the jig I worked at, there was a soda can with a flower in it. It was from that girl back in the drawer-making section. As angry as I was with the situation, I felt warm and tingly inside because it became apparent that the girl who had stolen my heart at the beginning of the year cared about me.

When it came time for our high school graduation, I still had never gotten up the nerve to ask her out. Finally, I mustered every ounce of courage I could find and asked her if she would march with me when we graduated. She told me she would like to, but she had already told another boy she would march with him. She said she would march with me if I talked to the other boy. Once again, summoning up every bit of courage I had, I spoke to him. He was very gracious and bowed out. I was on cloud nine.

We went to an amusement park on our first date. I don’t handle motion well and quickly get carsick and seasick. As we were riding one of the rides, I kept feeling sicker and sicker. This was our first actual date, and I felt terrible. I didn’t want her to know I was too wimpy to ride amusement park rides. I said nothing and hoped that my nausea would pass. It didn’t. I threw up on the ride, all over both of us. She took me to her house and got some of her dad’s clothes for me to change into while she washed mine. After my clothes had been washed and dried, we returned to the amusement park but didn’t ride anything but the train.

The rest is history. I knew that if our horrific first date didn’t end our relationship, she was as awesome as I had always thought. After a year-long relationship, with five hundred miles separating us, we were finally in the same place at the same time. I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this girl. In June 1975, we married.

I know that high school romances usually do not last forever and that when kids get married in their teens, the marriages aren't supposed to last, but we have proven those things wrong. It is still incredible to go through each day with my first love! I can't wait to see where this journey leads.

Many relationships don’t last. According to the National Vital Statistics System, one divorce occurs in the United States every 36 seconds. For many people, it seems that maintaining that first love isn’t possible. Many Christians also seem to have a problem maintaining their relationship with God.

Maybe your relationship with God isn’t what it once was. Do you remember when you first gave your life to Jesus? It was exciting to know that your sins had been forgiven. But have things changed? You still pray, sometimes. You still read the Bible occasionally. You talk about Jesus, but only if someone asks about your beliefs.

What has happened? Probably the same thing that happened to the church of Ephesus. In Revelation 2:4 (NASB), Jesus told the church at Ephesus, “But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”

In 1677, twenty-seven-year-old Henry Scougal wrote this to a friend: “The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love.” Henry Scougal was right: the object of our love, the treasure we passionately want, measures the worth and excellency of our souls.

Jesus is the only one who can measure the worth of your soul. He did it with Peter at their seaside breakfast after Jesus was resurrected. Just days before, Peter had tragically failed at loving Jesus, denying that he even knew Jesus three times. When Jesus met him on the shore, he asked Peter three times, do you love me? 

After lovingly serving him a meal on the beach, Jesus “said to him the third time, ‘Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?’ Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, ‘Do you love Me?’” John 21:17 (NKJV)

Gentle Reader, are you beginning to leave your first love? Was there a time when you were closer to God than you are today? God is calling you back to your first love. He wants you to find your happiness in Him. He wants you to experience that first love. He asks you today, do you love me?