Great Expectations, Greater Transformations

As a young married couple, we were doing everything right, according to all the world’s standards. 

I had found my dream wife, Anita, a beautiful, super smart, party loving lady, who truly loved me and wanted to spend her life with me. She made lots of money as an engineer (building atomic bomb parts!) and was energetic and outgoing in everything she did. She was a perfect partner in helping me fulfill my dreams to conquer the world and raise spectacular kids.

I also had started my career in the design, manufacturing, and service of medical drug pumps. So we went from being very poor college students to having two real incomes.  We had purchased a house and lots of cars. We even had formula race cars that Anita and I both raced (we are both car nuts). 

My life goals at the time:

Money and a giant house – Because that was THE sign of success.

Business – Own my own business – because that is what real men do.

Cars – Because cars are cool! (Not because I ever cared what the girl at the Starbucks window thought.) The cars that we owned / wanted were mostly weird, but very fun sports cars. 

Happiness – We thought happiness would come from having all of the things listed above.

After two years of marriage, we had our first child, Leslie, who was the perfect baby. She was always happy and traveled easily everywhere we went. So, we were a young happy family achieving the American dream. 

I was delighted with life at that time; however, Anita was feeling differently. I didn’t know it, but Anita was looking at her life and saying, “Is this all there is to life?”. She says that she thought to herself; “I have a high paying job, beautiful child, nice house, absolutely perfect husband (just kidding), and cars galore”, but she still felt that there had to be more to life. 

At work, Anita sat next to a guy named Mike who gave her the gospel and invited her to church. After a while, she thought that there might be something to that – God might be part of what was missing. As a child, and then later as a young single lady before I met her, Anita had visited churches, but had never found anything meaningful in them.

One day Anita came home from work and said she wanted to go to church on Sunday. I was surprised but thought, okay, that’s fine. When I was younger, I had attended church regularly with my mom, so that wasn’t any big deal. But then I heard that the church she wanted to go to was all the way over by Arrowhead stadium and was called Kansas City Baptist Temple (KCBT). Sounded like a cult to me! I really couldn’t understand why Anita wouldn’t just find a church on our side of town (we live near Shawnee Mission Park). 

Anita persisted, and we went to Sunday morning service. When Pastor Adams told the story of how Jesus Christ had died, was buried, and rose again to give us everlasting life, Anita was out of her seat and went to the altar in a flash. Anita became the perfect Romans 10:17 “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”, instant salvation. God said it. She completely believed it. Done. She was saved. Anita had found what she was missing, a true relationship with the LORD. 

I, however, felt completely different. I felt that I had just lost my wife to what appeared to be a crazy cult, full of crazy people who spent their whole life at church.  My fun-loving, party animal wife had become a very serious, extremely focused religious person, in a religion that I did not understand. As you can imagine, this was a giant shock to our relationship.

Immediately after that, life got extremely hard in almost every area of our lives. On top of the marriage upheaval, Haley was born two months after Anita was saved, and was one of the most colicky babies ever. Basically, if she was awake, she was crying at the top of her lungs. When Anita returned to work after maternity leave, three different day care providers diligently tried, but then said they could not handle her. Also, Haley was not eating well when she was with them and had been losing weight. There was only one solution; Anita had to instantly quit her job and stay home with Haley. Doing this cut our family income almost exactly in half. So, on top of having my wife join what I thought was a cult, with a complete change in personality, we were forced from financial prosperity to scarcity. We had to make it on my beginning career salary, and had the stress of living with a child that screamed continually for seven months straight. What a life! 

We continued to attend KCBT, Anita to spiritually grow, me to be sure that “the cult” didn’t do anything crazy with her – like the cults that are in the news.  Over the next five years (yes, I was the slow kid in class) I listened to what was taught, and I predominantly agreed with what was taught. I was particularly amazed that the Bible was so clear on so many points regarding science, things that scientists had claimed to discover much more recently. Statements, like the one in Job, that said that the earth turns as “clay to the seal” (rotates) and that lightning has a path that it follows (we now call a sipe). Also, I had always believed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God who had come personally to the earth, and that He lived a perfect sin free life. He was then crucified, died, was buried, and rose again, as payment for my sins. Several people even asked me about it, and I actually got annoyed, because of course I believed that. 

All this time, Anita was advancing through discipleship one, discipleship two, and became a leader in the counseling ministry. She also was asking everyone she encountered at church to pray for me because she knew that, although I believed what the Bible said, I had never formally accepted God’s free gift of salvation by faith alone (instead of earning it by faith, plus my works) and I had never been truly “born again”. It wasn’t until my graduation from Shepherd’s School, years later, that I learned just how many people Anita enlisted to pray for me. These included Deb Molder (huge thanks, Deb!) missionaries all the way from Africa (Millers), and literally hundreds of others at KCBT. Huge praise to God for all of them!

I believed in my head the story of Jesus on the cross. I had even been through a sacrament, called “confirmation” of salvation, but I had never made an intentional decision and asked Jesus into my heart. I had participated in religion, but had never taken the final step to truly enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as both my Lord and Savior.

Finally, after five years of huge patience and continuous prayers by Anita and all her friends, my blindness was lifted. Although I had thought that I was going to heaven, based on my past religions teaching, I finally believed by faith alone in the Gospel (and not trusting in anything that I did to earn it) and was saved. To me, it wasn’t a big deal at the time, simply moving from thinking I already was saved, to accepting what the Bible said and truly becoming saved. There was no special prayer or big fancy ceremony or anything like that; I just simply finally told God that I believed that Jesus Christ died and was buried and rose again for my sins, and that His payment alone was enough to save me.

Our family continued to attend church as normal for a while, but something was different; God was very strongly calling me to serve Him. So, I got baptized, and was pretty much strong armed into discipleship by one of the pastors (one of the best things that ever happened to me!) and soon started to help in the evangelistic astronomy ministry. 

God began to grow me and change me. I finally understood the difference between being “religious” and having the “relationship” of being a true follower of Christ. As a religious person, I had never experienced what the Bible said is true of a Christian:

There is one specific DAY of salvation – but I had previously never experienced that:

2Co 6:2  (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.) 

I also had never experienced the promised life-changing transformation of God to become a new creature in my ways of thinking, but now I could clearly see that that had occurred – I was different:

2Co 5:17  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 

I also finally understood what it meant when the Bible said:

Rom 3:23  For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 

Eph 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9  Not of works, lest any man should boast. 

Rom 10:9  That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10  For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 

At this point I was growing in the LORD. My priorities were changing, my life pursuing sin was fading behind, but our marriage was an absolute mess; it was at the lowest point in our lives. Neither Anita nor I understood how to be a Christian spouse. Rather than just being party animals and playmates, we were now called to something completely different, something that we did not understand. This was very hard and very frustrating. 

Anita and I wanted to be together, wanted the marriage to be great, wanted to learn God’s ways, but we were failing miserably. Worse yet, twice we sought help from two different pastors, at two different churches, and essentially got blown off with simplistic quick fix answers. What we needed was to be mentored in what it was to be a Christian husband and wife. This is why we are now so passionate about serving God in this area now. Marriage is hard, and young Christian couples need good mentors!  

We chose to have Anita stay at home until the kids were out of grade school, so our finances were very tight for about 11 years. Anita was fantastic at making a lot out of little and we were determined to stay out of debt. We didn’t go to restaurants, except for very special occasions; we bought clothes at garage sales and drove older cars. Through this time God completely broke our riches-focused, covetous-ways, and taught us how to live completely focused on Him instead. He was fantastic in providing EVERYTHING we needed during this time – sometimes almost miraculously. Later, He did give us the most amazing super high paying jobs we could imagine, but first He made us learn true biblical contentment. Once the kids were both in Jr High, Anita returned to work and God blessed both of our careers and incomes amazingly from then on. 

Anita and I continued to grow spiritually, and over time learned, piece by piece, how to have a good Christian marriage. The main keys were: pray often for our marriage together, spend time in the Bible and prayer EVERY DAY, study what the Bible says about marriage and just do it. Finally, minister together whenever possible (this was huge in creating unity of goals). 

Our marriage now is spectacular and even getting better! Anita is now my absolute best friend, best co-minister, best cheerleader, most amazing Proverbs 31 woman in the world. We are truly one in life, and one in ministry. When I retired, one close work friend even asked me in a kind of negative way, “what will it be like being home with your wife all day?” My answer – “like a dream come true!”

God has also transformed us from our original goals:

Money and a giant house – Now, we have a simple very content life and really desire no more. Money did allow us to retire early to minister more. We still live in the same house we bought way back before we had kids. We lived and invested God’s way; and huge praise to God, following His way results in wealth. We are so very blessed!

Business success – Now, we learned being good high paid employees allowed us to earn exceptionally good incomes and still allowed us freedom to minister in evenings and weekends. When I owned a successful business for four years, it consumed all of my time and it was not worth it.  

Cars – Now, YES cars are still cool!  Yes we still drive fun weird cars. One of them we have had since right before we were married 36 years ago!

Happiness – We thought would come from having money and stuff, but we learned not to seek happiness. Happiness is dependent on things, situations, and other people; therefore, happiness is very fleeting. 

We now seek Joy! – Joy comes from eternal things, not money or stuff. Joy comes from the opportunities to share the Gospel, the disciples, couples, and classes we teach, and all the lives God allows us to impact. Also, grandkids are very cool!

In conclusion, we started off a young married couple seeking happiness in all the world’s ways. God then reached out through Anita’s faithful work friend and saw her saved. Through her prayer and faithfulness (and that of many others), I was then also saved, and our lives were gradually transformed from seeking a happy possession filled life, into what truly is a joyful life serving the Lord. Although not easy at times, it was absolutely worth it. All glory to God for all that He has done in and through our lives. We pray that this may be your testimony also.

Larry Smith is a leader of LIFE Fellowship. He also serves as a deacon, teaching elder, men’s ministry leader, and financial and marriage counselor at Midtown Baptist Temple.

LIFE|Line is a ministry of Life Fellowship, a fellowship of Midtown Baptist Temple.