Complimentary Story
January 2024By Harry Wilkinson, Dixon, Illinois
We have now been married 33 years. Our first years together were very different from the typical marriage. We have both loved the Lord from childhood, but ended up making mistakes that drew us outside of the Godly life we should have been living. As we look back on the beginning, we wonder if the Lord looked down on two messed up lives and decided to get them together to see if they could get their lives straightened out and live to glorify Him. Within the first year, we headed in a direction that we never would have expected.
We went for a drive one weekend and came across a re-enactment camp that was open to the public. As we walked through it, we both found it, somehow, fascinating. We could not get the idea of doing something like that out of our minds. We both had good jobs and all the “things” you are supposed to have and to even consider walking away from the life we were living was not something that would be considered normal! But, we started making Native American style crafts, bought a Sioux style tipi and a U-Haul truck that we converted into a camper and ended up walking away from everything familiar. We traveled for about 4-1/2 years selling Native American style items that we made.
It was during that time that God drew us back to Him. He proved His faithfulness, provision, and protection to us, many times over, during those years. At the end of our time of traveling, God did one more thing for us that was even stranger than asking us to leave all we had and travel with the truck. We actually argued with God about this one! He led us into a 1300 mile cross-country walk with nothing to protect us and no way to provide what we needed other than through God Himself. He ultimately won and we did “the walk.”
I wrote all this to try to show the love and devotion my wife, Hadassah, has for God and for me. She was willing to leave all the security and possessions we once had to follow God’s will for us as He drew us back. She stood by me through some very difficult and trying times as we traveled and did the walk. Her love of God and His Word has been with her since childhood and she never truly lost that love — it just needed a time to revive once again.
Hadassah has wanted to pray together morning and night. We started doing it while we were traveling and continue to this day. Without her devotion to God, our marriage would not be like it is today. She follows the Biblical example of a woman in her actions, her dress, and her respect for me as the head of the house.
It was because of her knowledge of herbs and general nutrition that I am even alive today. She stood by me through a serious operation that went bad. She literally lived at the hospital for three weeks and took care of me during my recovery. I could never ask for a more devoted, Godly wife than I have in Hadassah. She and God got my life straightened out and once again following a lifestyle that I drifted away from.
It has been a great life with God and her for 33 years. We both encourage couples to pray together daily to keep God in their marriage. It is God that has made our life together as good as it is.
Proverbs 31:10-12 (KJV), “Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.”
• • • • • • •
By Hadassah Wilkinson, Dixon, Illinois
January 2024
It was 33 years ago when God looked down on two broken people with shattered lives. He allowed us to come together, restored us and gave us a life we never would have imagined. Leaving good paying professions to tour the country in a U-Haul turned into a primitive camper, selling Native American style crafts out of a Native American style tipi; at the Lord’s leading, taking a 1300 mile walk from northern Illinois to New Mexico. This was all made possible by Harry’s ingenuity and top notch management skills.
Harry’s positive nature offsets my negative one. It works something like this: Harry comes up with a great idea; I come up with all the problems that might ensue; Harry solves them.
His obedience to God’s Word and leading, his love and devotion to the Lord and to me, gives me reason to feel so honored to be his wife and so proud to acknowledge him as my head and my best friend. I could go on listing his attributes but suffice it to say he fits the Scriptural definition of a godly man:
“For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church: and He is the saviour of the body. Therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; That He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, That He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church: For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.” (Ephesians 5:23-33 KJV).
“That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.” (Titus 2:2 KJV).
In 2017, I suffered a hemorrhagic stroke and Harry took on the added role of caregiver. In the early days following I needed almost total care. Even today, Harry shoulders, almost entirely, the responsibilities of keeping a household that once were mine. This, on top of running the equivalent of two small home businesses, and the general duties that fall to a husband. All this with never a hint of complaint.
This quiet, contemplative, humble man with a servant’s heart is embarrassed when I brag on him, but how can I not? I have said many times and will say again, I am sure there are husbands as good as mine but there are none better.
Now Honor YOUR Spouse — Send Us YOUR Stories!
In today’s world of negative news stories and the never-ending cultural indoctrination and prideful celebration of worldly, self-centered, wicked and ungodly lifestyles, we would like “Honoring Our Husbands and Wives” to become a regular, uplifting feature here in Wisconsin Christian News.
If you would like to honor YOUR husband or wife, please write your story. Tell us how your wife is a “Proverbs 31 woman.” Tell us how your husband is a Godly man. Tell us how you met, and how your love endures because you are living your marriage GOD’s way!
We are looking for stories between 600 - 800 words, along with a photo or two...perhaps a photo from when you met or were married, along with one from today.
When you do, you’ll receive a T shirt. (Don’t forget to let us know your size). For the men, we have one that says, “I Love My Wife” and below that the words of Proverbs 31, “Far more precious than jewels...a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”
For the ladies, we have one that says, “I Love My Husband,” and below that, “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.” (I Corinthians 16:13-14).
We prefer that you email the stories to us at:
Rob@WisconsinChristianNews.com
Or, if necessary, send by mail to:
Wisconsin Christian News
225780 Rib Mountain Dr. #229
Wausau, WI 54401
What an encouragement this will be to others you meet along the way, to live life and love others God’s way?!
