People frequently comment on Alistair Begg's Scottish accent, but have you ever wondered how a Scotsman ended up in Cleveland, Ohio? Well, today we're going to hear the fascinating story and we'll learn about how Alistair and his wife met and fell in love with each other.
That's today on Truth for Life as I continue an interview with Alistair Begg. How did you wind up as a teenager in America in the summer? How did that happen? Oh, my late father-in-law would say because, you know, I am a tenacious Scot.
That's the answer. It was this American family. I'd never met an American family that I met when I was 16 in suburban London that introduced me to Americans who were in the UK with Campus Crusade for Christ. And it was one of the girls of that American family that I had set my affection on.
Break that, so you meet her and you see her and you go, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this simple stuff. You're 16? She was 13. 13? Yeah. Did that compute for you? That you're 16 and she's 13?
No, I never gave any thought to it at all. I never imagined anything really beyond the fact that I sat down to lunch at this table invited to this American home and around the table were various people, some friends and people in the family and across from me a girl. And she had the lovely, lovely eyes. And I was just fascinated, captivated by this. And I went to Carnaby Street in London before we got the train to go back to Leeds.
And I got a postcard at Carnaby Street and I wrote to her and I said, it was so wonderful to meet you and ask your mother if it's OK if I write letters to you. You were instantly smitten. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. No, I mean, it was it was just it was the weirdest thing. So we lived 300 miles apart from one another. And then one day without checking, I without checking with me, took the American family back to America. And so I had then the problem that it wasn't over 300 miles between us. It was three thousand miles between us. So I was very sad. And there's more to that story.
My friend was friendly with her sister. I called him on the phone. I said, did you hear that they're not coming back? He said, yes. I said, what are you going to do? He said, what do you mean what you're going to do? I said, well, what are you going to do?
I mean, they're not coming back. He said, well, that's it. He said, you know, it was nice. You know, they live there.
We live here. Let's move on. I said, no, I'm not doing that. He said, what are you going to do? I said, I'm going to go to America. It was like, yes, sure you are.
Yeah. Why don't you visit Mars on the way? And but I put the phone down in my hallway and I said, I will I will go to America.
I'm not going. This is not over. So I wrote letters for another year and I envied the way to get to Xplo 72 with Campus Crusade, knowing that her friend folks had introduced me to Campus Crusade and discovering that they were going to go to Xplo as well, taking this girl with them. And so after a gap of about 14 months, I then met up with her in the Adolphus Hotel, which is where I was staying with these Campus Crusade guys. And she came walking down the stairs. Now she's 16 years old. I haven't seen her in 14 months. And I suppose it could have been that she said, hey, hello. The summer happened, but no.
I got through that summer and then I said, you know, I'm going to write I'm going to write to you more and more. And I mean, she was here. The boys were here. All the stuff was here. Everything was here. All I had was a pen, no telephones, no faxes, no Twitters, no nothing at all. And so that's how I ended up there.
And that's how I ended up back there in 75 because we just ran out of postage and decided to get married. But at that point, she was only 20. You had crushes before her? Oh, yeah. Every time. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah.
I mean, always. But you knew this was different? Yeah. Well, we found out after seven years of writing letters, it was different.
I mean, the thing that made it different was it was like talking about steps along the way. At the beginning, it was just silly childhood stuff. And we have all of our letters. Wow.
All of our letters, which have to go and burn some day. But as time progressed, you know, it's one thing when you're writing to a 13 year old girl and your mother says, what is this about? She has lovely eyes. Well, you know, as man to man, she didn't have much other than lovely eyes as a 13 year old girl. So there was no like sexual connotation in it, you know, peculiarly. Not that I was immune to that or that we are.
But as it progressed, she suddenly realized this actually could happen. And so I said, you know, you've got to go about your life. You've got to go to your high school. You've got to go to school prom. You've got to do your thing. People take you here, take you there. And I'm going to proceed like that as well, because I'm not going to live as a monk and you're not going to live as a nun. So you were dating other girls? Yeah, I said we had to because it didn't make sense.
It would be crazy. This is not the way other people might go at it. But I said, this is what I was going to say to you. You are number one in my affections. If you get moved off the top spot, I will going to write you a letter. I met Mary Lou, and she's filled up the page so much that it's only right to let you know.
Sweet Mary Lou, I'm so in love with you. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's exactly right. Was that the Seekers? No, that was Ricky Nelson. Was it? Yeah.
The Seekers did it virtually, I think. But yeah, and so I said, and maybe you will go at it in the same way. And what happened was that her parents then suddenly realized – although her dad was reluctant because I had long hair and other things – but they realized – What other things?
Well, very skinny jeans. But they realized that these letters that were coming from this Scottish boy were actually good for their daughter. I don't mean that in any presumptuous way. It would be significant. Because there was spiritual encouragement happening?
Yeah, exactly. Because I was encouraging her then to get involved. One of the guys who was in the Adolphus Hotel with me by this time was married himself. And I was encouraging her to get involved with his wife, who was also a Campus Crusade girl, which was exactly what happened. And on my shelf over the road here, I have her living Bible, which is all marked up as a result of the weekly visits with this girl. Well, I don't want to take credit for that.
But I suppose to solidify this or just take it to the next level? No, I didn't know what it would be like. I didn't know what chance there was.
I got a dog's chance and no chance. But I certainly was even more resolved. We spent that entire week together in Dallas. Then I flew to Los Angeles with my Campus Crusade buddies. And then I had previously brokered a deal whereby the family's visit to a cottage up on Lake Michigan would also include an invitation to me. And so I was then in that environment. So although we were never closer to one another than 300 miles during the whole seven years, on the occasions that we were together, you were in an environment where you could really take a measure of the person. And so I had the opportunity to view that, at least up until she left for America, because her parents came to check out my setup when they realized this fellow was writing letters to their daughter, which was good on their part.
And so they came essentially to vet us. At what point did you say, we're done writing letters, it's time to solidify this? I was so foolish and naïve about everything that I bet I told her that when I was 18. If we keep this thing going, I'm going to marry you, if you let me.
And so I think in the winter of 73, I came to America and I actually sat down with her dad and I said, you know, this thing here, this is killing me because I live and die for the letters from your daughter. I mean, I'm not messing around. So I don't know how this is going to work out, but I want you to know that's how serious I am. And I want to know that you're okay with that. And if you're not okay with that, I want to know that too, because it was just devastating for me.
And so I think then, and I said to Sue, you know, maybe we can make this happen. So I think I was in the winter of 73. She then came in the summer of 74. Of course, my mother had died in the November of 72. And we roamed around Scotland with my dad.
Bless his heart, you know, he, he took us around, must have been so hard for him. This is, this is none of my business. Your first kiss?
Sue. Where, when, how? In the back of a friend's car.
I said, don't look through your rear view mirror here, James. How long had you been writing letters at the point you kissed her for the first time? I kissed her on that Sunday night. That, when you met her, that, yes. I kissed her in the back of the car before she got out. She didn't know what had happened to her. That first, she's 13, you've just had dinner with her and you said, no, no, no, we went to church. It was very spiritual.
She was not, she did not go to church in the evening because she wasn't old enough for the youth group. But like you say, it's none of your stinking business. You're a rather roguish young man. Tenacious Scott. Listen, it was, there was, there was something about the whole thing that was almost cosmic, you know.
Yeah. How did you propose? I just said, we're running out of postage. Will you marry me? Nothing fancy. Nothing fancy.
No. We went out, we went out to dinner. I think I bought a ring in like a department store. I mean, none of this should be, you know, I mean, there's no reason, there's no earthly reason why Sue would buy out for this and her sisters, you know, they felt sorry for her. Oh, look what's happened to Sue. I mean, look, she married a guy who's going to be a pastor. Yeah.
Let me ask you. We're going to have to send care packages to this girl. I mean, what, this is a terrible thing.
What are we going to do? She could have had no idea she was, what she was signing onto as a pastor's wife. Oh no, she couldn't, especially not in Scotland in the seventies.
Yeah. When we went to the church on our own in 77, you know, the expectations on the pastor's wife were the expectations on the pastor's wife. The pastor's wife is the chairman of the ladies thing. She leads the thing.
She does the devotional and everything. Sue was, well, she's 20 when she's married. So now she's 22, maybe 23. And all these old, what seemed old then, Scottish ladies, they didn't know what it cost her. But she was fine because God brings good friends into that environment. And there were, there were a couple of ladies there who became more than big sisters to her. And, and that was her salvation. Did she ever have a season early in the marriage where she thought, what have I done? Oh, probably.
No, no. You know, we were united in, in the thing, you know, we look back on it now, you know, here we are in the, in one of the most visited cities of Western Europe and we never did anything. You know, we had no money.
And I, I wanted to please Derek Prime so much that, you know, if he said, go visit 10 people, I would visit 20 people and we didn't suffer from it. But she was gone from her mom, her dad, her siblings, everything that really represented security in her life. And she was hanging it all on companionship with me. But she knew that that was going to happen only, well, our wedding was set for the 16th of August. The encounter with Bolch and took place in maybe April. So this was just months before the wedding.
Yeah. So she didn't, her father didn't know if I even, if I was employable, he didn't know if I could support his daughter. And I didn't know either. I mean, in the providence of God, I mean, Kirby told me, Gilbert told me, there is not a man in the entire United Kingdom to whom I can send you who will be of greater benefit and help to you than the man you're going to.
He said, you don't know that because you don't know him, but you will know that. Now, how did I get that opportunity? Did you think or did she think you would live in Scotland your whole lives? It never ever occurred to us to think of anything other because by the time we were two years into it, she had a miscarriage in Edinburgh.
And our son was born and so all the formative elements of her life in sort of grown up and married life were all now formed in the Scottish framework. She was very contented. She was very happy. My sisters loved her from the age of 13. I mean, they met her when she was, I think, 14.
And to this day, they're the best of friends. So everything was good. It wasn't quid pro quo, you know.
Maybe if I do X years here, you will come and do X years there. No. But when the invitation came from America, then as I say, it was a relatively easy thing for her to come back into an environment that was not strange to her. And did that invitation – was part of your calculation that she had sacrificed to be with you and so now to come to America? No. Not in any sense. No. She never asked that question. She never posed that.
No. The real question was, what do I do with this invitation, which I first declined and which came again a year later. And you know, I came here as a very reluctant prophet. I had been in America enough by this time. I mean, I came in 1972.
Now we're talking 11 years later. So I had been north, south, east, and west in America. I had been in Vermont. I'd been in New England.
I'd been down in the southern states. And I knew that if you wanted to go somewhere in America, you're not going to go to Cleveland, Ohio. Not if you're sort of choosing. So I didn't hold any appeal in that way.
The challenges that were represented in it were fairly daunting. I came out of a genuine sense of oughtness. That's the honest truth. I mean, I came willingly, but I came fearfully. And the fact that 37 years later we're talking about it is an indication of the forbearance of the congregation, of the tolerance of the lay leadership, who I surely must have driven them nuts in the, I'd still probably drive them nuts, but I must have really done a number on them in the early days. And again, that's an indication of the grace of God, softening those things and creating affection even in the rough-edged elements of interpersonal relationships. What was your motivation when you got married? I guess I'm thinking back to my own marriage. I got married because I liked being around this person who loved me. I liked being loved. I was just thinking, this just feels good to be with this person. I've grown from there, but that's where I started.
Yeah. I would be where you are on that one. I got married to Susan because I couldn't imagine living my life without her. I wanted her to be my friend in life.
It's Abigail Adams, you know. I wanted to become her dearest friend in all of its dimensions, in terms of physical relationship with one another and everything, yeah, yeah. I wanted to become one with her. I didn't want to write letters to her anymore. I couldn't handle it any longer. I wanted, no, I wanted to be married.
What counsel do you give young men and young women about thinking rightly about marriage in this day? Well, one of the things I say and, you know, they say, well, you say this, but what about the safety valve for me in this whole thing like you kiss this girl in the car before she leaves. But I was 300 miles away. That would have been a real problem if I lived three doors up from her or something. It was just so bizarre.
It shouldn't have happened, it should have happened, who knows. You're writing letters as opposed to hanging out. We don't hang out. There's no way to develop that except these crazy letters. What I would say to somebody, one of the things I say to them is always never assume that a friendship has to be more than a friendship when it begins. Especially in our sexualized environment where the phenomenal, ridiculous pressure and notions that are attached to all of this, the terms of engagement, Christian young people are going to have to be prepared to set boundaries for themselves that are regarded as absolutely ridiculous by their surrounding culture.
It's one of the ways in which the teenager can actually prove that we are a peculiar people. And so I want to encourage them and help them in that regard. And also because, as I think we probably can acknowledge, many of the marital difficulties that we deal with in pastoral ministry, I find myself when they walk out the door saying, I don't think they've ever been friends. I don't think it was that their friendship dissipated. I don't think they started as friends. And especially if you add a physical dimension to the relationship on the front end that may actually become a driver for things.
So that's one of the things. Enjoy developing friendships without putting the added pressure on the thing in male-female relationships. Look to role models that can help you with this. Be honest with whoever it is in your sphere of influence, whether it's your youth pastor, whatever else it is, realize that he knows exactly what's going through your head. He understands exactly the concerns and the passions and stuff.
I don't know much beyond that, just as I think about it just now. On our wedding invitation, we had 1 John 4.19, we love because he first loved us. Has there been a verse that's marked your marriage? Anything that the two of you have come back to as kind of formative to what your relationship, how God has brought the two of you together? Well, and the two shall become one. Our wedding rings engraved into hers was and the two, and engraved into mine shall become one.
So I guess the whole notion of we two are one. Well, we've been listening to a conversation with Alistair Begg on Truth for Life, and I hope you have enjoyed learning more about Alistair's backstory. Now we are counting down the hours now until 2022.
Our offices are open today until 5 p.m. Eastern Time. If you have not yet reached out to Truth for Life to make a 2021 year-end donation, we hope you'll do that today. Truth for Life is entirely listener-funded, and it's your giving that makes this daily program and free online teaching possible. Please don't let the day end without calling us at 888-588-7884, or go online to truthforlife.org slash donate before midnight tonight to make your 2021 donation. And when you give, request the book Piercing Heaven, Prayers of the Puritans, today's the last day I'll be mentioning this wonderful collection of prayers from well-known Puritan writers. Using the book is a great way to enhance your prayer life by making these devout prayers your own. The book is yours when you support the teaching you hear on this program.
Again, visit truthforlife.org slash donate. Now Alistair is back here with a special New Year's greeting. Thanks Bob. We are at the close of another year of teaching the Bible, ever grateful to God for his faithfulness and for watching over us and providing for us throughout 2021. On behalf of our entire team, our warmest wishes to you and your family for a blessed New Year. And I'll just add my Amen to that. I'm Bob Lapine. We wish you all the best as you close out the old year and bring in the new. Join us again Monday as we'll find out why God can't fail us no matter how our circumstances appear. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-07-02 23:14:10 / 2023-07-02 23:24:16 / 10