June 26 2019 – Click here to listen
My wife and I have been in the keys for nearly 8 weeks. It has been a wonderful time and I’ve fished nearly every day. Monday I depart and head north. I’ll miss my friends down here and I’ll miss these beautiful waters that literally are teeming with fish. It’s getting hotter by the day and the water is heating up fast. I pray that the hurricanes will stay away this year and spare this lovely place.
I lived down here for nearly a decade and would love to come back, but my wife prefers to live where there is more to do than fish, snorkel, and dive AND she wants to live close to her sister whom she loves dearly. I’ve made the decision to accommodate her and live further north. We’ve been married 48 years and I know her pretty well by now. I have no doubt that if I insisted she would move back to the keys; however, this is really important to her. I can fish in Stuart and though it is not as good fishing there, I can live with it, and the keys are just a few hours away and the Bahamas even less.
So many of my friends end up getting divorced. I believe the primary reason is that they will not compromise and always demand their own way. In nature if something will not bend it will break. I prefer to be like the sea oats that gently sway in the wind and not like a rigid pine tree that snaps in two when it is subjected to a storm. This does not mean that you have to accommodate every last desire someone has, but that you must establish a give and take attitude.
I met a guy yesterday who told me he got divorced and now has a girlfriend who is half his age. He was bragging about it for quite some time and then I asked if he had any children and grandchildren. He told me his children now spend little to no time with him and he lives alone in an apartment. I could see the look of pain sweep across his face and it was obvious that life was not as wonderful as he tried to make it appear.
He then abruptly changed subjects and told me his girlfriend likes to frequent bars until late at night and he is well beyond those years and cannot keep up with her. And he added she loves to spend his money. His friends tell him that is why she is with him and he said he doesn’t mind.
I asked why he got divorced from his first wife and he said marriage was too confining and he wanted to be free. He said she didn’t want a divorce, but he insisted. I looked intently at him and he seemed to be reflecting on the words he had just uttered. He wanted to be free to do what he wanted to do when he wanted. Hmmm . . . I don’t think he is free at all.
Mark 10:9:
“Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”