Cookies Crumble, But Our Love Marches On

by Kevin Burton

   Late last month my wife Jeannette did something to jeopardize our marriage.

   We were at Subway and I heard her say to the sandwich artist, “..and we want three chocolate chip cookies…”

   Three chocolate chip cookies.

   As you know, three is an uneven number. It’s quite a bit more uneven when applied to cookies, am I right?

   I don’t know all the rules for joint property, but what could I expect for a proper division of assets for these newly-acquired soft, melt-in-your-mouth cookies?

   There was a restaurant I loved in Columbus, Ohio called Cookers. They went out of business at a time when I held about $40 in Cookers gift cards. Oh Well. 

   Cookers did a similar friendship-testing thing. They made the very best dinner rolls I have ever tasted. Without fail, a server would smilingly bring three of these rolls to the table before taking your order.

   Really?

   In our home Bible study, each week we independently read a chapter of the Bible and write down the answers to four questions: what does this chapter tell me about God?, is there something for me to do as a result of this chapter?, is there a promise for me to be believed in this chapter? and What is your takeaway from the chapter?

   On Monday nights we compare notes, but first we read the chapter out loud, both taking some of the verses.  Jeannette has a special math she employs on Monday nights.

    . For example, if we were studying Acts chapter 20 she would say “Thirty-eight verses, one for me, 37 for you…”

   Applying her special math to the haul of cookies, it would be “one for me, two for you.”

   I was sure that is not what she had  in mind. Didn’t even bother asking that one.

   Really what Jeannette should have said at Subway was “..and we want three chocolate chip cookies…no, wait…Kev, did you want some too?”

   We read in the Bible that “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh” (Mark 10: 7-8 NKJV).

   And this happened for K&J twelve years ago today. Yes, this is our 12^th wedding anniversary.

   In his gospel, Mark wrapped things up rather neatly. What he said is absolutely true. But there is, or can be, what Paul Harvey would call a “rest of the story.”

   For instance, we hear in “Did It In A Minute” by Hall & Oates, “Well, I still can’t say I know when a love is real or touch and go, and if two can be one, who is the one to become?”

   Well now children, remember, don’t get your theology or marriage advice from Hall & Oates. Songwriters Daryl Hall, Sara Allen and Janna Allen didn’t get it.

   And I’m not saying it’s a simple thing, but here’s where it starts: You know your marriage is real, rather than touch and go, when you start with Jesus Christ as a mutual friend. The songwriters didn’t grasp the one-flesh concept because they had no Biblical basis.

   Couples who don’t start there, I don’t know how they survive.

   There of course still is a K and still is a J, but we committed to K&J on that day in 2012. There we have lived to this day, under the grace of God.

   Asking “who is the one to become” is suggestive of some kind of tug-of-war that God never intended for marriage. Of course we can still go there at times when we get our eyes off Jesus. I am not holding us up as some kind of champions of marital harmony. Jesus is the key, not K or J.

   Neither am I throwing Hall & Oates completely under the bus. For in this same song with the ridiculous “who is the one to become” question, they make the sublime statement that “everybody always laughs at love but what they want is to be proven wrong.”

   And all God’s couples said, “A-men!”

   You don’t believe me? The proof is in the cookies.

   Ah yes, the cookies. Who got the cookies? 

   If you’re scoring at home, it was 2.5 cookies for Jeannette, half a cookie for me.

   This is the wrong answer for the equation three divided by two. But this is the right answer for happy wife, happy life. Fellas, take note.