Rick and Kay Get Married

by Dave Boehi

Christianity Today has an interesting online excerpt from a new biography, Prophet of Purpose: The Life of Rick Warren.  The excerpt tells the story of how Rick met his wife, Kay, and the struggles they had right after they were married.  I'll have to get the book and read the original chapter, because the story felt a bit condensed, but as it stands it's a sobering tale of two people who were woefully unprepared for marriage.  They hardly knew each other when they got engaged, they spent nearly all of their engagement apart, they were unaware of how some baggage from Kay's past would affect their relationship, and they did not know how to communicate and resolve conflict.  It's a classic story to illustrate the need for thorough premarriage counseling. 

But it's also a classic story of two people who stuck with their marriage vows.  They sought help from a Christian marriage counselor, even when they really couldn't afford it.  It paid off, and they have returned for counseling several times since then.  "There are times now when we'll say, 'You know, we could really use a tune-up,'" Kay says, "and we'll got for a while and it helps us through a rough spot.  Rick and I are big believers in really good counseling."

I was just about to post this when I met with Bob Lepine, my boss here at FamilyLife, and he reminded me that he and Dennis Rainey interviewed the Warrens on this subject for FamilyLife Today.  They're very honest about the mistakes they made before they were married.  "You talk about violating principles," says Kay, "if somebody were to do a premarital counseling with us, and all the things they would check off and say, 'This is bad, this is bad, this is bad, you haven't done this, you haven't talk about'--we had done none of it."