Love Never Ends: Jarrod + Tish

Jarrod and Tish are the parents of one of my best friends, Dylan. They are such a fun family and have raised an awesome son!! :) Their faith over the course of their entire relationship amazes me. Here's Jarrod to tell us their story:

I met Letitia (Tish) in June of 1997. We were both 22 years old. I worked doing data entry at a company in Newton called StraightLine MFG and we were short handed and needed help at the time. I suggested we used Man Power (an organization that provides temporary help to companies in need) to try and find a number of suitable temporary employees to help us with our data entry. Tish was home from college (Kansas State studying business and accounting) and had applied at Man Power to find work for the summer. She was sun tanning at her parents house when the phone rang and she let the machine pick up. It was Man Power, and they were calling to offer her a job where I worked. I recall her saying that she almost didn’t call them back because she wanted to relax a few more days before she started working. After a brief inner struggle she chose to call and that decision would set everything in motion that would get us to right here and right now. She sometimes jokes and teases me when I am being annoying saying “I wonder where I’d be if I wouldn’t have answered that phone call?”… I jokingly create the probability that she would be in dire straights in the slums had she not taken that call and met me ;)

When Tish walked into that business the day and I met her, we seemed to get along immediately. We shared a small office, each with our own little desks and talked a lot. While spending hours and hours logging data in the computers, we discussed music and TV shows we liked, sports, food, our past histories and shared stories. I really liked her, but like anyone, I was nervous about actually asking her out on a date. My friend and coworker who was also single knew I liked her but that I had cold feet, so he said, “Hey man, you met her first and I know you like her, but if you aren’t going to do anything about it then I am going to ask her out.” That was all I needed to hear, so I asked her if she wanted to come to a party with me. She said MAYBE and then never came. A week later she asked me if I wanted to go out for a drink after work and so we did.

We sat at the corner of the The Old Mill bar in Newton drinking margaritas and played a game where we took turns asking each other personal questions. The only rule was you had to answer truthfully. I’ll never forget when she asked, “How many kids do you hope to have some day?" I answered “5." She said, “5!?!? That’s a lot of kids!” I said, “Yeah, I enjoy kids and I always thought it would be nice to have a large family. Thanksgiving, Christmas and other holidays with a large family would be nice. Later on in life having lots of grandkids come over...I don’t know. There is something about it that I relate to happiness. What about you? How many kids do you want?” She said, “MAYBE 1.” Of course we now have 5 children so she changed her mind :) Tish would later say that she had no idea how much she would enjoy children; so much so that if she knew then what she knows now she would have gone to college to become a teacher or do something to work with kids instead of business and accounting.

Tish and I spent almost every waking moment together that summer. We were together at work, went out after work, and basically hung out all weekend long. She truly became my best friend. It was especially difficult when that summer came to a close and she had to leave to go back to school in Manhattan. We had grown very close and had begun building something together that I didn’t want to end. I knew from past experiences that long distance relationships didn’t generally work very well, and while I would never want her to quit on a dream like getting her college degree, I didn’t want her to leave either...so I told her that. However, she had a house in Manhattan she leased and obligations, and it wasn’t possible for her to stay.

We spoke on the phone every night, she drove from Manhattan to Newton to meet me for lunch a few times between classes, and she also came back sometimes to visit on the weekends. After a couple weeks into the fall semester of her final year of college, she dropped out and moved back in with her parents so we could be together. Tish had done such excellent work when she was working as a temp previously that our employer offered her a full time job, which she took. We continued dating and spending all of our time together when in March 1998 we discovered that she was pregnant.

Both of us being raised Catholic, I think that a very large dose of remorse set in for us both followed by being dreadfully frightened. Neither of us knew anything about being a parent. She had just turned 23 years old and I would be 23 in less than a month. While we weren’t terribly young, we were not prepared to be parents. We were immature, unmarried, and I recall feeling a great deal of shame...I knew from my upbringing that we had sinned and yet I still didn’t make very good choices. We spoke with our families and with a Catholic Priest. I had difficulties seeing eye to eye with the priest and following his advice. The church would not marry us unless we would separate; even after our child was born for a period of time and we had taken some classes. I hardened my heart and sort of fell out of faith.

Instead, we found a small house for rent in Newton and moved in together. Tish found a new and better paying job in Wichita and I continued to work at the same job in Newton. Life got much more difficult. We fought and argued more. Our situation had changed very quickly from two people young and in love to a couple of immature kids having no option but to try and be grown ups for the sake of our son. We had issues with vehicles, with our home, with our jobs. We had issues with our faith. We weren’t going to church very often and life in general was just getting tougher. I remember having doubts that our relationship would ever be able to survive our current situation. I remember praying which wasn’t common for me. Being raised Catholic, I knew a million prayers that were drilled into me all my life, but what I didn’t have was a personal relationship with God. I honestly didn’t even know what it meant to have one or how to personally speak to Christ in prayer. My prayers consisted of a robotic chant that I had recited over and over and over my whole life. Then, the company I was working for filed bankruptcy and I lost my job. Right around that same time, either just before I lost my job or just after, we found out that Tish was pregnant again. 

We intended to get married for a couple years and simply never did. Now with one child and one on the way, we went to the court house and through the justice of the peace were lawfully married. Yet in the Catholic Church's opinion, we were still not married in the eyes of God, so we were not allowed to receive communion. Tish was taking the kids to church every Sunday and I rarely went with them. I felt jaded about the Catholic Church for many reasons, but mostly because of my own ego. Tish always invited me and encouraged me to come with them but never really tried to make me go. It’s something I would learn to love and truly appreciate about my wife; she has always led by the example that she sets. She has never tried to change me to become something I am not, but rather she encourages me to be the best ME I can be! All those years, she patiently waited for God to work within me and I know she prayed for me often as well. 

I was drawing unemployment for a couple of months and looking for a job one day when Tish asked me to get a board cut at a lumber yard for our oldest son Dylan’s toddler bed, so I drove to Hesston to Kropf Lumber. I had worked there years before for about a year, so while getting the board I was able to say hi to some old coworkers. Upon hearing I was unemployed at the moment, they offered me a job on the spot! A couple days later, I was working in the truss shop cutting lumber and assembling trusses.

During that first summer at Kropf, a young man named Troy, who was in training to be a youth pastor, came to work part time in the truss shop. He was a big St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan and we spoke often about sports. I also spent a lot of time playing devil's advocate; questioning him about what the Bible says regarding this and that. I grew up going to church every week and spent most Sundays in sunday school at St. Mary’s church. I knew many stories from the Bible but I had never actually picked up the Bible just to read it. So one time, Troy responded to one of my grand inquisitions with, “Look it up tonight in your Bible and tell ME what you discover.” I scoffed and told him that I didn’t even own a Bible. A few weeks later, it was Troy’s last day at work as he was leaving to begin pastoring at a church in Indiana (or something like that.) Before he left, he took me outside to the parking lot and gave me a gift that would change my life. It was an American Standard, red letter Ryrie study Bible. He wrote an inscription inside, and it all led to true repentance from my heart for my sins and a wonderful journey with Christ that I am still on this day. That is another story :)

The moment that I allowed God into my heart, my life began to change in every way; most importantly in my relationship with Letitia and my kids. At times, it can be difficult to understand why God is doing what He is doing. That is why faith is soooo important! "My relationship with someone I know I love is falling apart, my car is broken down, I have a toddler who is a handful, I am lost in my faith, we are eating ramen noodles and hamburger helper, we are barely making it and now I find out that we are having ANOTHER baby!? JESUS help me! I can barely handle one child!"
So what did God do after my prayer? I was laid off. Let go. Fired. There I was, trying to pray and ask for help (undeserving I might add) and he fired me! That was seemingly the worst thing that he could have done for me, and yet by doing so in hindsight, he placed me EXACTLY where I needed to be to receive His grace by working through young Pastor Troy. 

It is easy for me to see why people separate and divorce. Relationships are hard work. When you add ingredients like being young, immature and unmarried it’s even harder. Add a child or two and it’s even harder yet. Add very little interaction with God and things can feel down right impossible. But I have learned that many times in life the old sayings you hear are true...it IS always darkest before the dawn. When climbing a steep hill, you use all of your muscles, strength and energy to get to the top. The toughest point is the moment before you reach the summit, but after that, it’s all down hill from there. When running long distances there are moments when you start telling yourself, “I can’t do this anymore. I have gone as far as I can go.” From my experiences, that is the VERY moment you are about to overcome the pain and push through it to discover that you can do it and then some! 

All throughout life, I believe God chastens us. Like a carpenter uses heavy, coarse grit sandpaper on a piece of wood to scratch the surface, the end result is a smooth and beautifully polished personal work of art. I believe that God too does this in our lives. I pray often that God gives me the wisdom to recognize these difficult moments for what they are and rejoice, because I know he is making me stronger and increasing my faith, so long as I pass the tests. He has done this to us as a couple as well. And with every mountain we approach, we climb it TOGETHER. With every long distance race ran, we run TOGETHER. With every tunnel of darkness passed through, we endure it TOGETHER. Our relationship grows and is strengthened as we stand at the summit of the mountain top, watching the sun rise TOGETHER. We stand here together today, smooth and polished where we were once rough and full of splinters.

I know that our relationship will continue to be tested at times, and I look forward to those tests, because in the end it will be those tests that ultimately strengthen us as a couple. God has given me more than I ever deserved. I regret that I wasn’t a better father and husband early on for my two oldest boys and for Tish. Yet, it was all a part of the process. It’s hard to say if I had the chance to do it all over I would do things differently. Most people can say they would change things from their past, especially during the tough times. But while I am sorry for the sins of my past, in my heart I cannot wish to change anything. It was through this journey; every step of it, that led me to Christ. That gave me the love of my life. That gave me my children. That was a part of Tish finishing her degree and graduating from Kansas State with two sons. This past led me to quit drinking. To quit smoking. To get promoted in my job 4-5 times over. And ultimately helped us to finally have our marriage blessed by the Catholic Church after 15 years of legally being married :) A culmination of things learned the hard way brought me to where I am, and I wouldn’t change that for anything.

I hardly feel that I am qualified to give advice to any couple considering my past choices, but I would simply say this: have a personal relationship with God; it will make you better in every aspect of your life. Pray with your partner; it will help to build your relationship on solid foundation. Trust God; don't ever second guess Him. Know that He is going to test you, and you must rejoice when times are tough because He is trying to strengthen your relationship. Love and respect your spouse, but laugh and have fun. Don’t take things too seriously. Love is a gift from God...enjoy it! Tish and I tease and make fun of each other all the time, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. 

So many things are temporary, but love. Love never ends. True love is permanent. God's love is endless. And just like God's love, our love will never end.

In His love,
Jarrod and Tish

^“Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.” -1 Corinthians 13:8