Father Knows Best
By Amanda Robb
The bride before the ceremony, says she's never kissed a man...until today.
Photo Credit: Amanda Marsalis
For the next seven years,
Lauren avoided boys altogether.
Then, in February
2006, the Wilsons paid
a visit to the Air Force
Academy, which Lauren’s brother
Colten was considering attending.
Accompanying the family on the tour
was 23-year-old Brett Black, a blond-haired
cadet. Lauren had met him
before through church, but “from that
moment on,” Lauren sighs, “I was just,
like, head over heels.”
She returned home that evening and
asked God if Brett was the one for her.
“I set aside 40 days to really pray hard
and ask for direction,” she remembers.
Meanwhile, Brett also decided that
Lauren and her two teenage sisters
were “gorgeous.” The idea of a permanent
commitment entered his mind.
“I thought, Am I crazy? I’m graduating
in three months and possibly moving
away,” he says. “But I could see
myself marrying one of those girls!”
Brett, too, began to pray. The future
pilot soon found himself being “guided
toward Lauren.” Two months later, he
arranged to meet Randy at a coffee
shop. There Brett said, “I’d like to start
a relationship with one of your daughters.”
He thinks he specified Lauren.
Randy invited him to dinner. After the
meal, Lauren and Brett were left alone.
“I’ve noticed your character and I’d
like to hang out with you. I hope I don’t
sound stupid,” he said.
“It would be an honor,” she said.
Over cappuccinos at the local Starbucks, Randy
and Lisa share their theories
about the success
of Lauren’s courtship.
“I’m the one who knows Lauren,”
Randy explains, describing how he met
with Brett every few weeks after their
initial conversation for what amounted
to marital coaching. “Brett doesn’t
know anything about Lauren. So I can
help them be a success.”
As much as I respect Randy’s sincerity,
I find his involvement in Lauren’s
relationship medieval. And if he doesn’t appreciate that, surely Lisa — woman
to woman — can see the peculiarity of
this arrangement?
Lisa, a voluptuous, emotive blonde
who will spend 31 years (1990 to 2021)
homeschooling her seven children, sees
no such thing. Her own father walked
out on her family when she was 2. “I felt
like he threw my heart on the ground
and said, ‘Deal with it,’” says Lisa, bursting
into tears. I pass her a napkin.
And Randy’s father? “He was good
at providing, poor at relationships,” he
says. Absent any examples, Randy and
Lisa wrote their own rules.
After meeting at Ohio’s Cedarville
University, Randy and Lisa married in
1982. That year, they moved to Austin,
TX, where Randy started a roofing
company. It dissolved in the mid-’80s,
by which time the Wilsons had four
small children. When Randy got a job
offer in construction in Colorado, the
family moved there, but soon after, the
job evaporated.
“He pounded the pavement eight
hours a day and couldn’t get a job flipping
burgers,” says Lisa, who remained
at home, caring for their children. After
months of looking, Randy landed a
position as a salesman for a print-media
company — not exactly a financial
coup.
In such difficult times, other men —
and let’s face it, women, too — might
have taken to drinking, crime, or promiscuity.
Some would have just taken
off. Randy, however, took to the Lord.
After coffee with Randy
and Lisa, I spend the
evening trying to put
Lauren’s relationship
into a context I can
understand. I imagine my own husband
receiving marital advice from
members of my immediate family.
(“Amanda can be bitchy, but if you
bring her a bottle of chardonnay she
cheers up considerably.”) Depending
on his mood, my husband would have
burst out laughing or run screaming
from my entire clan.
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