Bob & Charlyne's Blog - from the heart of a restored marriage

In the early 1970's I fell in love with the cassette tape. It was fascinating that an hour's worth of audio would fit on something that could be carried in a shirt pocket. My collection of cassettes has endured three decades of use and abuse, and even a journey through the far country of life. (Yes, many were sermons, but loving a prodigal you know about having ears but not hearing.)

Right now I could dig out the most abused and oldest cassette tape from under my van seat, blow out the dust, shake out the petrified bug, pry the old jelly bean off the shell, and listen to audio that I last heard twenty years ago, starting right where I left off back then. I know it would play, but just not in my van. Prior to a Rejoice on the Road tour last year my wife convinced me we needed to exchange the dash tape player for a CD player. (I did so to make my wife happy, but let's see her listen to any of her coffee-cured, sun bleached CDs a couple of decades from now.)

For over eighteen years the cassette tape has had a vital role in Rejoice Marriage Ministries.  My favorite illustration of the convenience of cassettes is the story of the four year old whose prodigal Daddy picked her up for visitation one day years ago. Once in his car, when the man asked his daughter what she wanted to do that day, she said "Listen to this," and her little hand pulled one of her mom's Rejoice tapes out of her coat pocket.
Mom had no knowledge of what her little daughter was doing. (I wonder if a CD would have even fit in that small pocket?)

I have left Charlyne's teaching tapes in truck stops and have handed them to strangers on trains after overhearing of marriage problems. They have been left with tips in restaurants and mailed around the world in the pre-Internet days. I do not think until we all get to glory will we each realize how many lives have been touched by the cassette tapes. I still love the indestructible cassette tape, but this is 2008 and people want to hear digital sound from a CD. The audio from every cassette I ever owned could now fit in that shirt pocket on memory sticks.

Know what? It is not the method that is important, but the message. Solid declaration of the permanence of marriage, and the importance of one man and one woman, married for a lifetime was relevant yesterday, is true today, and will ring out tomorrow, be it heard proclaimed from a vinyl record, a reel to reel tape, an eight track, a cassette, a CD, a podcast or whatever is coming next. The audio fads may come and go, but God's institution, the family is timeless and will stand strong, if we each do our part in its preservation. To God be the glory.

God bless,

Bob Steinkamp

(By the way, the tape player I updated in my van was a cassette player, not an eight track. Neither I nor my van are quite that antique.)

Have you ever exited a retail store and had an employee check your receipt against what was in your bag? I suspect that at some time most of us have thought, "What if there is something extra in my bag by accident? Will they think I am a thief?"

Saturday afternoon I sat near the entrance to the super store, waiting for Charlyne to finish shopping and observed an employee eyeballing exiting customers, making certain they had paid the price for what was in their bags.

Unfortunately, some of the people we work with will welcome their returning prodigal mate home about like that eagle-eyed store employee. "Let me check things. What's this? A love note from the other person? Some incidents in your past I never knew about? You ran up bills? What kind of person are you?" The poor prodigal starts to wonder how much they are really wanted at home.

When I came home following divorce, Charlyne did not act like the package checker. She was much more like the greeter, welcoming me home, under any conditions, and at any time. Long before I surrendered to God's call and went home, I knew the Steinkamp store on Seventh Street had only a greeter, and not a checker. She had allowed Jesus to pay for my prodigal purchases, so what was in my bag did not really matter. I had been forgiven.

By the way, Saturday's super store was located in Okeechobee, one of my "far countries" while we were divorced. The visit had followed a train ride with grandchildren. Charlyne had driven up to bring us back home, and a Saturday trip to that rural community is not complete without a visit to the super store.

My wife has such trust in God working through me that she can take me back to "the scene of the crime," or more accurately, "the scene of the sin," to the heart of that rural community, the super store, and leave me alone, on a Saturday afternoon, without fretting over who I would see or how I might be tempted.

God has given me quite a woman for my wife. I pray that you will become that kind of person to welcome your prodigal spouse home.

God bless,

Bob Steinkamp