I love her because she sings a song only I can hear

Susan Detweiler was a cute ‘bundle of cuddly’ when I met her in the winter months of 1975. With shoes on her feet, she barely rose above five feet two inches tall. In a crowd, she would not be the first person I’d see. But once she fixed me in the radiance of her green eyes, and lit up the room with that  glorious smile, I was hers. There was no escape, as if I even desired to run.

I ran to her, not further away.

From the first conversation with her, it was if I had known her for years. We ‘clicked,’ as they say.

We first met in a community college Physical Education Volleyball Course. It was set, game, and match all at once. I was completely ‘gaga’ over her. We were ‘words and music’ together. That few months before we became engaged, and then married, we had eyes and ears for no one else. From our first meeting to our wedding day was just six months. A few weeks later we began our first household 500 miles north of where we met.

We arrived in Angwin, California, in late August of 1975. It was in Angwin, the home of Pacific Union College, where I would finish my college education. It was here in this mountain top community that Susie and I became parents, too. As a trio, the music we made was just richer somehow. But only we could hear it. We followed a melody that God laid before us. A few years later, following graduation from college, our family grew to a quartet– mom, dad, daughter and son. Years later still, we grew to a quintet with the arrival of our second son. Before we knew it, we had been together ten years.

From Northern Calif., to Portland, Oregon, and then on to Orlando, Fla., in just ten years. I went from working as a communications intern to management positions in short order. My Susie never lost her ‘luster’ in my eyes. In fact, to me, with each passing year, she became evermore beautiful.

As I look back at our nearly 50 years together, I am struck by how clearly I can see the Lord’s leading in our lives. For that, I am truly grateful. We have moved along the melody that is our life as if by a Conductor only we can hear. Angels working at the behest of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have been guiding our steps all the way. And all I can say is ‘thank you.’

May it ever be so. — FM