Steve & Mary Reiter
In Sickness and in Health
Mary and I met way back in high school in Jamaica, New York at a Catholic School dance; she was a pretty girl wearing a parochial school skirt and button down shirt with blond hair and I was attempting to be what we called a love child – long hair, Nehru shirt, black pants and Beatle boots. We could not have been further apart in background in every way. Yet, we fell in love and decided while still 16 and 15 that someday we would get married.
Yet things change, we wed in 1971 while I was still in the Army; then went through many changes – you know from 16 – 25 there are so many changes all go through. My priorities love and values changed, and not just once. Mary always had Christ in her life, I mock all religion. One day in the midst of a bitter argument, Mary ran into the bedroom, sat on the bed in tears and took up the only bible in our home. When I blew into the room seeing this scene, I picked up the bible threw it through the window of our 6th story bedroom and screamed next time “it won’t be the bible going through the window”.
Not many years later, through her prayers and so many others reaching out to me in Christ’s love, I accepted the promise of salvation (Romans 10:8-10). Life would never be the same and the early love of a teen, was matured with a love that would last until we went home to be with the Father.
Last February 7th I came home from Dallas to find Mary, now 65 curled up in a fetal position crying out in pain. We brought her to the doctor who immediately sent her to the local hospital for testing. The results of a MRI showed a large blood clot on her liver. The next 3-4 days were touch and go, not knowing if Mary would ever come home again. Crying out to the Lord along with so many others who loved us, He heard our voice and through the wisdom of the Holy Spirit we were able to start the process of healing – today that clot has been resolved. All the things the world tells men are important faded as my best friend was on the brink of eternity. These past 11 months, once again my priority shifted as I recognized all the money and power in the corporate world would not extend Mary’s life one day and the travel which consumed my career causing me to be separate from her, under the guise of taking care of the family was just a ruse.
Today, my love for Mary Reiter is greater than ever before, a love grounded in the knowledge that she and I with Christ are a 3 strand bond that can not be broken. The words we uttered way back at our wedding to take each other for worse, poorer and sickness became evident as I committed to place her in the spot the Lord says she needs to occupy.
In Him;
Steve
