standing with hope

by molly and kerry klima

I clearly remember the first time I saw Kerry. I was a freshman at the University of Toledo and he was a sophomore. He was on stage at a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting, giving his testimony about his summer missions trip. He was hilarious, humble and clearly loved his family. I liked his longer hair with the highlights. I admired his boldness. I remember praying, “God, I want to marry this guy or someone just like him.” I had never talked to Kerry. He didn’t know my name.

We became friends. The next fall my parents met him when I took a group of friends to their house for my dad’s cornmaze. My friend decided to tell my parents who I had a crush on. My dad had to try to picture him and then said, “Wait. You mean the guy who was wearing a pumpkin on his head?” Yes. Kerry had found a giant pumpkin, gutted it, and spent a good amount of the evening wearing it. A couple months later we went Christmas shopping together, his idea. He teased me an awful lot about being a tomboy and ended our evening with a fist bump. He told his friends the night went great. I called my best friend, bawling like a baby because I had gotten the impression he thought I was “one of the guys.” A few weeks later we went on our first date.

So, here we are! We’ve been together for 17 years and married for 15. We still like and love each other. It’s not been easy, but it’s been worth it. We got married when we were 22 and 24, five months after graduating college. We fostered 6 kids, adopted 3. Kerry went back to school during our hardest season of parenting. My arthritis came out of remission with a vengeance. There’s been job loss and job promotions. Surgeries and great improvements in health. We’ve both had to be intentional about taking care of our mental health. Our marriage has been effected by alcohol and we are thankful Kerry is almost 9 years sober.

We don’t have a ton of things in common. I like music, books and movies. He has little interest in those. Kerry likes brain teasers, cooking and crime documentaries. I have little interest in those. Kerry roots for Ohio State. I root for Michigan. He’s a risk taker and wild card. Like the time we rode Clydesdales for our anniversary and Kerry was bucked off after making the horse gallop. We do both like to golf and do just about anything outdoors. Our faith is what we’ve had in common since the beginning and without that as our foundation, we would definitely not be where we are. The Lord has been gracious and merciful to us. He has given us more than we ever could have asked for. That might sound cheesey, but it’s true. Here are the biggest things we’ve learned.

1. Honor Your Spouse in Public- “We can’t all have the perfect, white picket fence like you, Molly.” she said as I was walking out of the office. I laughed to myself. It was funny for anyone to think that my marriage was perfect or easy. She had no idea the struggles going on in our home. I was somewhat proud in that moment because I knew how she’d drawn that conclusion. It wasn’t that I ever claimed to have a perfect husband or to be a perfect wife. I just simply didn’t bad mouth my husband at work. I didn’t sit and complain to my friends about the small annoyances or ever try to down play his strengths. I made a point to speak highly of him when I had the chance. Not beacuse I was hiding anything or lying, but because I have respect for him and no desire to try to drag him through the mud. This goes both ways. There have been times we’ve seen his co-workers and they congratulate me on something or ask me about something positive I’m working on. Our issues are our issues and we work them out between us.
2. Fight Well- During our pre-marital counseling we had to talk about how we would argue. We set ground rules and we stuck to them. No name calling. No yelling or screaming. No low-blows or bringing things up just to hurt the other. Divorce is not a threat or joke. I don’t know if Kerry has ever stepped outside of these guidelines but I know I have once or twice. Kerry is also great at tabling a conversation until I can calm down enough to talk until I’m actually ready. And because he has done this, after 15 years, I rarely need that to happen. Working things out with him in this manner has helped me grow in conflict resolution as a whole.
3. Talk Openly About Finances- Financial strain is one of the leading causes of divorce. We each brought debt into the marriage and cut ourselves off from our parents financially right after our wedding. The economy was in a recession. Kerry found out 30 days before our wedding he was getting laid off. Believing that we could not serve both God and money, we’ve made our money serve God and us. Neither of us are materialistic people. We’ve been debt free (aside from our mortgage) for seven years and haven’t had credit cards in probably ten. Financial Peace University helped us. We try to steward our money well. We’ve worked hard but we’ve also trusted God and kept our hands open. This isn’t a brag. It is a testimony for us to share that even when the giving has been really painful, there’s never been a day our needs were not met. We talk about our money openly and make decisions together. We don’t approach finances as “me vs you”. We approach them as a team.
4. Balance-When I asked Kerry for his thoughts on what has helped us thrive together this long, his first answer was balance. We are rarely overwhelmed or escalating at the same time. In fact, we’ve made it a point that when one of us notices the other is too stressed to deal with a situation in a calm way or has too much on their plate, we step in to help each other. Generally speaking, Kerry is more calm and logical than I am. Better than telling each other to calm down, we’ve worn out the phrase, “What can I do to help?” Knowing that men want to fix and women want empathy he will often ask, “Do you want me to fix this or do you need me to listen?” Those two phrases have broken a lot of tension and helped us both to slow down in the heat of the moment. Do we always handle things in a calm way? Nope. But we do our best. This also applies to the “in sickness and in health” part of our vows. Kerry has probably had to pick up more of my slack at times due to my arthritis. He has never once complained.
5. Choose Love– Choose it over and over again. Every day. Ten times per day. Love is not an emotion. It’s a choice. Sure, it feels good when you are in your feels. But when you’re not in your feels? You still have to choose it. You make the choice love by being supportive when you want to say “I told you so.” It’s choosing to extend grace even when you are certain your spouse doesn’t deserve it. It’s remembering the comittment you made and being the person you’d need them to be if they were in your shoes. And sometimes, it means speaking truth in love and holding them accountable. Love is an action word. It compels us to movement.
6. Laugh-Keep it lighthearted when you can. Our parenting journey has been a gigantic rollercoaster and 12 years in, we laugh more than we cry. Special and high needs parenting is the only parenting we know. We don’t know life outside of IEP’s and 504s at school or assessments and therapy. This can all be really overwhelming at times but we’ve learned that any challenges our kids face do not define them. Kerry is well known for his sense of humor and even when we’ve been at our worst, that has helped keep us afloat. We all know none of us are getting out of here alive, so we might as well laugh when we can.
7. Community– Who is speaking into your marriage? What kind of advice are they giving you? At all stages of our marriage we’ve had at least one couple, also committed to following Jesus, on speed dial. Whether we needed help during Kerry’s addiction or were trying to survive with three toddlers, someone was there to encourage us. Not to retaliate or “you do you” but to fight for each other and with each other. Even now, being around other couples who are committed to each other, doing their best to follow Christ together, help keep us focused on what matters most. Sometimes community looks like uncomfortable conversations and some times it’s a fun camping trip.

We’ve learned so much and I know there’s so much more we will learn. Our life will look very diffferent in fifteen years. I imagine we will be empty-nesters. We may even be grandparents. I often say I’m glad we went through so much early on because it has strengthened us for the storms to come.