Photos by Alex Towers
GENERAL NEWS
More than 8,000 Christian women from across the United States converged at the Vines Center to hear inspirational speakers and be entertained at the Extraordinary Women’s Conference in September.
percent of Evangelicals give less than 10 percent to all charities. Christian giving is less now than during the Great Depression and the more money we make, the less we give. It is in these statistics on giving that Gaither finds a disturbing trend. To Gaither, helping your fellow man in the moment is more important than just waiting and preparing for a grand calling from God. “God’s will for your life is to get involved today. I would say very strongly to college students, if you think it’s gonna get you to some glamorous place because you went to Liberty University, God will never use you. Never. But, if you are able to recognize His will, right now when it interrupts you, whether that’s as unglamorous as cleaning up your room … If you are capable of studying and instead go to the corner hangout and drink Cokes all night until your brain doesn’t work and you can’t study for your test, don’t be telling me you want to find God’s will for your life. God’s will for your life is now.” Gaither said students should study for tomorrow’s test, be nice to the people they don’t particularly like and embrace the things they thought were ordinary. “If you can’t find compassion for your broken roommate who is maybe a jerk, but the more you find out about them, the more you find out why [they act the way they do]; if that doesn’t break your heart like it breaks the heart of God, then don’t tell me you’re going to go minister in Africa. It’s not gonna happen,” Gaither said. “People who are blind to what God is asking them to do today pretty much remain blind to what God is asking them to do the rest of their lives. It doesn’t get any more glamorous than that. That’s it. This ain’t the rehearsal — this is the play and we’re in it right now.”
Making marriage work As for Gaither’s long marriage and partnership with her husband Bill, Gaither said jokingly that she and Bill don’t
recommend their busy lifestyle to other couples. “We have been pretty independent, both of us, but we’ve been independent together. We’ve written together, we have kids together, we travel together, we are critics of each other’s art and we have three very artistic, opinionated kids. With five very artistic, opinionated people in one house-hold, you could sell tickets,” Gaither said. Gaither said she believes two “whole” people make a “whole” relationship and she doesn’t recommend that anyone look for a marriage partner to be their other half, or missing piece. “I don’t think you find someone to mend your broken heart to fix you somehow. If you’ve got brokenness in your life, fix it before you try to get married. Don’t take that stuff into a relationship, because then you’re going to have kids and propel that into another generation,” Gaither said. “People ask, ‘Do you ever fight?’ Well, yeah. I think you don’t need to worry about conflict; you need to worry when you don’t care anymore. When you just say, ‘whatever.’ Whatever is a really bad word in a relationship. If you’re in that place, that’s not a good place. As long as there’s passion, even if it’s passion to argue, there’s still hope, because there’s a real close relationship, psychologists say, between love and hate.” Gaither said that because she and Bill are together all the time, they have tended to grow in the same direction. “I think you should marry someone who’s on your page. Does that mean you’re not going to be different personalities? I think really sunny people tend to marry more steady people and people that are more melancholy tend to go after more outgoing people. In my experience, long-term marriages are more often between people with more in common, more alike. “Look for somebody who is your best friend, the first person you can think of who you’d like to spend the rest of your life with.” www.liberty.edu
19