WHAT DID HE SAY?

Today, Milton brought me down to a beautiful restaurant on the St. John's River for our date. He told me yesterday he wanted us to go somewhere alone today for a couple of hours. He said he wanted to talk to me. What is he going to say? What is he going to say?

***

First, he said he didn't want me to record our conversation, but then he said, "Okay." I had told him I wouldn't be able to remember all his sweet words.

"I want you to know how much I love you, Kristy," he said. "We're going to make it through this.

"I told your brother this morning," Milton continued, "she has have helped people. She's encouraged people and blessed and touched them in all manner and facets of life. Wherever you've gone, Kristy, you've honored Christ and ministered to people, from church work, to secular work, to writing, to speaking, to teaching and training, you've modeled a life that is Christ-honoring that people can follow. You have chosen to use your gifts in a manner that is God-honoring, and it will not return void. I told your brother, "She's not perfect, and I've lived with her all these years, and her time has been used to bring glory to the Lord and to do what she does in the most excellent manner that could be done. She's helped trained pastors' wives and done all kinds of things that nobody will ever know about. She's been willing to work behind the scenes in places nobody ever saw and has been placed in the forefront and touched people in public and mass manner, and I'm very grateful to have a wife I can be proud of like that.

"I love you, Kristy. I'm very proud and thankful to the Lord for you. I believe God's going to fulfill your dreams and God's dreams. This is a test but we want God to be glorified in our lives, and we've chosen to honor Him when our prayers were answered and when they were delayed or not answered in the ways we wanted, and we're determined we are going to honor Christ, and that 's what we're going to do in this."

"I remember when we had our first church service as husband and wife, and how you were so shy, you couldn't even greet the people. You could only say, 'Hi,' and I remember when you've spoken at Calvin Theological Seminary and other prestigious places, and you've been an excellent teacher and presenter and speaker and writer and have blessed literally hundreds of thousands of people, and God's going to honor your faithfulness and bless you with many more things to come.

"We have laughed, we've loved, and we've lived life to the fullest, and you're a wonderful mother, and a wonderful wife, and the best minister's wife a man could have, and you've helped me, and I'm very grateful to the Lord.

"Seems like yesterday when I asked you to marry me."

Kristy: "We were sitting on the water, then, too, on Lake Parker in Lakeland, Florida, when we were students at Southeastern Univeristy. The place was called Sertoma Park – Ser To Ma – Service to Mankind Park, and that's been how we've lived…" (crying profusely, so broken up I could barely speak) "…with service to mankind and to God."

***


"What do you want to say to me," he asked.