How God Sovereignly Brought Us Together and What We've Learned After 25 Years

Their First Meeting at Ryan’s Steakhouse

Hey guys, this is Keith Foskey and this is my wife, Jennifer. Hello. And today we are doing a special video in celebration of our 25th anniversary. August 1st, 1999, at the age of 19, we became husband and wife.

And we are here at our Airbnb, which is Disney-themed throughout, I've been posting some pictures of that on Twitter. And we are in the Beauty and the Beast-themed dining room. And so we're going to talk today about how this beauty got her beast.

We're going to tell the story of how we met. We're going to talk about what we've learned over 25 years of marriage. And we're going to give some small pieces of advice to young couples who may be starting out and talk about some of the things we've learned along the way.

So we're going to do this in a relatively short amount of time because we are on vacation. We don't want to do a really long video, but we thought it would be fun to do this for you guys as a celebration of our anniversary.

So Jennifer, what was the first thing you remember when you met me?

I remember you were wearing a suit. And I had heard I had a project due for a class I was in, a humanities class in high school. And my dad said that I was going to be meeting a teenager my age. And when he got out of his car, I remember him being in a full suit.

And I remember thinking he looked a lot older. So I was very surprised.

Yes, I did look a lot older. But the reason was is because, one, I've always looked older. I've had a mustache since birth. It's okay, I get it. I get it from my mom. No, that's it. Mom, when you watch this, I love you.

Oh, by the way, happy birthday. We got married on my mom's birthday. My mom does not have a mustache, and that was a terrible joke. But no, I was working for a funeral home at the time, and I was also a magician.

And the reason why her dad wanted to get in touch with me and have me talk to her is because this humanities class was asking her to do a performing arts project, and I was a magician. I worked as a strolling magician in high school.

That's a person who goes around and does close-up magic, a la David Blaine, if anybody remembers that from the 90s. And her dad and my dad worked together. They worked for Metal Container, which is a company in Jacksonville, subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch.

And my dad was telling people at work, my son's a magician. Your dad said, let's meet this guy and have him teach you some magic tricks. And we've been together now almost 27 years. We've been married 25 years.

Have you learned any magic tricks? Not one. Not one. All right. So the whole reason we got together has not come to fruition in your life at all. No. Okay. So where did we meet? Ryan's Steakhouse. That's right.

It's a buffet. I don't know. Do your listeners know? Well, they know what a buffet is. I would imagine. My listeners probably really know what a buffet is. I mean, they probably don't know what Ryan's Steakhouse is.

Yes. Well, Ryan's Steakhouse. They've long gone the way of Blockbuster. That's right. But yeah, COVID -19 killed the buffet. So we met at the buffet. I did some magic tricks for you. And I'll never forget the way that you looked at me.

You made me feel like I was very, very special. And I don't think I've ever had anybody look at me that way. But the way you looked at me was amazing. And I fell in love with you. I know it's kind of corny to say I fell in love with you the first night.

But ever since that first night, I haven't stopped thinking about you. That's so sweet. Yeah. So, but we started to see one another. Her dad had a very specific rule. We could only see each other once a week.

We could see each other for four hours from 6 o 'clock to 10 o 'clock on Friday evenings. I could come pick her up and take her out, which means we could either go to dinner or a movie, never both, because we had to limit our time.

But we did that for our senior year. We went to senior prom.

Dad, if you're listening, which you won't be, you would come sometimes to school and have lunch with me in school.

Yes, I did break the rules because I would skip school at my school and I would go have lunch with her at her school, which was totally breaking the rules. I was totally trespassing. It was not good. I am not encouraging this or endorsing this in any way.

But it is an absolute truth.

That's what I did. This was a pre -9 -11 security. You just walked on the campus. Yeah, you just walked into the school. There was nothing. There was no metal detector.

There was no security guard. Yeah. So then you went to college. I went to work. I did security. And about a year after high school, we decided we were going to be married. We got engaged in high school.

Do you remember that? I remember. I got down on one knee. She was a softball player. I don't know if we mentioned that part yet. She was a college-level softball player. She got a college scholarship for playing softball.

And so I asked her to marry me on the home plate. I got down on one knee on home plate on a baseball diamond or softball diamond when we were in high school. And so we got engaged in high school. I gave her my grandmother's ring that my dad had kept and I had it cleaned and some gold added to it because there was one part that was beginning to wear thin.

And so I had it re-golded. And there was a lot of things I had done to it. And we still have that ring. You don't wear it anymore, but you still have that ring. And then we got married in church. The same church I'm currently now the pastor of is the church I've been in since I was seven years old.

And that's the church that we were married in on August the 1st, 1999. But we were not believers yet. Even though I had shared the gospel with her, even though I wasn't a believer, because at that time, end time stuff was real big.

And so a lot of people were talking about left behind, all that stuff. And so we had a conversation one night, late one night, about how Jesus could return at any moment. And that began to get the wheels turning in your mind.

And then you talked to my stepmom.

The Gospel Conversation That Led to Salvation

Well, I remember us having a conversation also. And you said, and I said, well, I'm good. Yeah, I mean, the way that I was raised, I was not raised in a Christian home. But you said without the Lord Jesus Christ, without him, you're going to hell.

And I just could not believe that.

And I was lost. I was lost as a goose and didn't know it.

Yeah, I stayed up all night thinking about that. And the next day I went to his stepmother's house. One of the only people that I knew was really a Christian at the time. And I said, how can I be saved?

I mean, I cannot get rid of this feeling. I can't do anything about it myself. I don't want to spend eternity in hell. I don't know anything. I don't have a Bible, nothing. And she said, well, just wait on Sunday.

We'll talk to our pastor. And I said, I don't want to wait until Sunday. I want you to tell me right now. She sat me down and went through like Romans chapter one, Romans three, Romans eight, you know, the Romans wrote, basically looking back now is what she did.

But yeah. And I remember that night watching you guys over on the sofa talking. And I was and then she said, Jennifer just got saved. And I was like, OK, I mean, I didn't know what to think because I was like, well, that's good.

That's I mean, because again, I thought I was saved. And it was a little while later, it was after we got married, that I was confronted with an atheist at work. I've talked about this story on the show before.

I've given my testimony before I was confronted by an atheist who said, you know, believers were stupid and I didn't want to be stupid. So we had this long conversation and I ended up sort of realizing I wasn't saved.

And God used that to save me. And I remember where I was when I got saved. So God brought us together. And again, we're talking about the sovereignty of God, because, again, a couple of things just to consider for how we came together.

One, our dads worked together, but we never met that we know of up until that night at Ryan's Steakhouse. And there were actually family events that their company would put on. So we may have seen each other as kids, but we never remembered any of that.

We never remembered seeing each other. We just knew that God had brought us together. And he brought us together through magic, something I would have never learned if I had not met my stepbrother. My stepbrother showed me my first magic trick.

And it was because of him I got my first job as a magician. All those things happened. God was bringing all that together, working all that out to bring us together. And this, again, just looking at each thing, even my parents' divorce, you know, was a terrible thing.

But if it weren't for my parents' divorce, I'd have never met my stepmom. I'd have never gone to the church that I'm at. And I wouldn't be the pastor of where I am right now. I would have never even known the church existed.

So it's like God was working, even in the sinful acts, even the things that we would say were not good, were not things that were righteous. God was working all that out and bringing us together. And he had a plan for us.

He had a plan for us that we would adopt two children, Ashley and Cody. He had a plan for us that we would have four children. And we have. We've had four children plus two adopted children. And we can even say God had a plan in our heartbreak.

We've had three miscarriages. Over the years. And so we have experienced all these things. And we can say that it is in the good times. It's been great in the hard times. It's been hard, but we've been able to do it together.

And we're thankful to God that he brought us together. And we're so grateful to get to be able to share this with you guys. And there's other stories I'd love to tell, like our wedding night. We forgot to book a hotel.

So we ended up in Orlando like during bike week. And there was no, or it was something, it was some big event and there was no hotel. So we went to the, we went to the roadway end to get a hotel and they're like, we're booked.

We don't have anything, but there's one room available at our sister hotel, which ended up being the Omni Rosen, the nicest hotel on international drive. And we got it for like $69 a night. And they gave us the honeymoon suite.

It was the honeymoon suite. And it was just amazing. Cause we walked in, in our wedding, she had her wedding gown on. I had my, I had my tux. We were literally carrying the trash bags with our, with our luggage.

We did not have luggage. We were so poor. We were, we had borrowed a car from where I was working. I was working for Westside Dodge at the time. We had borrowed a car and the car dealership had let us take the loaner vehicle to drive to Orlando.

We were so poor. We didn't have anything, but we had each other and we loved each other. And it was a couple of years later that 9 -11 happened. And, uh, I preached my first sermon on the Sunday after 9 -11.

And I told Jennifer, after I preached that sermon, I believe God's called me to do this. I think this is what he wants me to do with the rest of my life is to preach his gospel. And she confirmed that in her heart, that that's what God was calling us to.

And I, and that, that'd be my one first piece of advice. If you're a young minister and you believe God is calling you into ministry, he's got to also be calling your wife. Not into ministry because my wife's not a preacher, but my wife is a pastor's wife, and there is a certain sense in which she's got to have in her life, the calling of doing what she's doing and being the support system that you're going to need.

And just a few years, a few weeks ago, I interviewed Tom Askell and I asked him, we talked about his wife and things that, you know, we just talked about ministry. Remember that when I interviewed him?

And one thing he said about what his wife's job was, was to keep him in ministry. And, and I think for you, I can say that in all the times it has been tough. I mean, we have gone through heartache. We've gone through people who have mistreated us.

We've gone through times where we've had severe, just backstabbing and things like that, and yet I've always known when I came home, I had someone who was going to support me, someone who was going to encourage me, and that is her gift.

That's my wife's spiritual gift is the gift of encouragement. And she's always been that for me. And she's been that for many other people too. So I love you and I'm thankful for that. So, those are the stories we want to tell.

And then we wanted to give a few pieces of advice. Did you have anything, any other stories you wanted to add? Any thoughts before we move into the advice part and then get back to swimming in the pool with our babies?

Not that I can think of right now. Okay. All right. Well, we didn't make this, like I said, we didn't want to make this too long. So let's get to the piece of advice that we thought of. A few things to think about if you are a young couple, if you are looking forward to getting married, or if you are already married, just a few thoughts.

Faith, Family, and Finances in Marriage

Number one, when I'm doing premarital counseling, I always talk about three Fs. And these three Fs are things that I have noticed, as a good Baptist, I have to have alliteration, but these are three things that I've noticed that have been a real issue that I, not just that we've faced, but also that we have seen others face.

And we both sat in on premarital counseling. We're both trained in counseling. So we have done counseling for couples. And the three things that tend to be the things that bring up the most strife that we have seen, and these are not the only things, these are just three things.

And number one is faith. You got to be together on that. You have to be standing together. And if one of you begins to have some, you know, maybe go in a different direction. Like when I was when I was becoming Calvinist, she wasn't a Calvinist and she is now, but I knew that I couldn't just make her think things.

It's like Matt Whitman said, and I keep repeating him on this, I can't think what I don't think, right? And I can't force her to think something, but I can seek to convince her with the scriptures. And that's what I did.

And that's how I became convinced. That's right. It was just through the scriptures, just talking it through, explaining it and trying to encourage her. But there was a time when it was concerning, wasn't it?

Yeah. That you thought I was wackadoo. And there's still people who do. And there will be someone who comments on this video who says that I am wackadoo. All right. So just so you know, we know you're there and we appreciate the comment.

It helps with the algorithm, even if you don't like us or me. I'm sure you like her, but you don't, you may not like me. She's a Calvinist, but she's a Calvinist too. Oh, many people do not like me. And that's okay because I still love them because I'm not just a Calvinist.

You're nice. I'm nice. That's right. All right. So faith is so important and that's something that you need to lead in, man. You need to lead in your home and you need to be a man of faith, a man of the word, and a man who seeks to encourage your wife and to wash her with the water of the word.

That's what the scripture tells us to do. That is a command. Uh, the next thing is, uh, family, family causes a lot of strife. And by that, I mean, family, not, not just your family, your immediate family with your kids, but also external family.

One of the most difficult things we face is people outside our immediate family who are trying to interject within our family and create problems. This can be parents. This can be siblings. This can be even with us like cousins and stuff, because we've got family all around.

And so you have to remember where your primary allegiance lies. One with God and two with your wife. This is your most important person in life. More important than your children, more important than your parents, more important than your siblings, more important than your best friend has to be your spouse.

This is the one person who you're going to live with forever. Uh, your, your, your children are going to grow up one day, uh, Lord willing, and they're going to go have their own spouses and you need to model for them a model of fidelity to each other.

So faith, family, do you remember the third one? Finance. Finances. That's right. Faith, family, and finances. That's number three. Finances is a, is something that you guys have to be able to keep under control.

You have to be able to, um, understand that you live within your means, live even below your means, try to live on what you make and, uh, not stay constantly in debt because that's the kind of thing that can really cause a lot of problems, especially if you begin to go late on debt, your credit gets bad or any of that stuff, all of that stuff can be bad, you know?

And, and, um, if one of you, there tends to be in a relationship where one is sort of the spender and the other's the saver, which one is it for us? Which one?

That depends on what category you're spending.

I think, I think I'm probably like, I think on big ticket, ticket items, I'm probably the spender. You're much more afraid to like buy big things, but I think on smaller things, I'm a little more scrimp and save, you know, like I'm, I'm always looking at like, are we paying too much for the streaming service, which is like $5 a month or something like, oh, $5 can't afford that.

So I, but you gotta remember that when it comes to finances, this can be a real strain, especially if you were like us, a single, single income family. And we're grateful that the church supports us in a way that we were able to survive on a single income.

Praise the Lord for Sovereign Grace Family Church and all the saints there that, that provide for our family. We're so grateful for you. But at that same time, these are just, these are just an area that, that you need to consider that this can be an area where strife comes up and just be on the lookout.

Friend of mine wrote a book recently, remember Brewster, Aaron? And it's called Quit, and it's on the subject of family strife. And I did an endorsement for it. So if you're, if you are struggling in this area, maybe you've been married for a few years and you're looking for something to help, I would encourage you to, to go and get that book.

He's got some really good ideas there and some thoughts that can help you. All right. Last thing, and that is the last F. I said there was three Fs, but I'm going to outdo my good Baptist here and I'm going to add the fourth F.

Forgiveness, Repentance, and a Gospel Marriage

And that's one that I think that you and I both can really attest to, and that's the subject of forgiveness. We were just talking this morning about a Facebook post that a friend of ours put up where she mentioned that if you've been married for 20, 25, 30 years, then you're not a testimony of a perfect marriage, but you are a testimony to forgiveness.

Right. And that's something that, what did you say? You said something similar, you responded just saying about our marriage. You remember kind of what you were saying?

I just said that a Christian marriage, I mean, it's a gospel marriage. I mean, we sin, we fall short, we repent to each other, we ask each other for forgiveness, and then we reconcile together. And then we, I mean, we live out the gospel, like our marriage is the gospel that lived out in front of our children, in front of other people that see us, that we don't just quit, you know, when trouble comes, when we have an issue and we forgive each other.

That's right. It's the core.

That's right. I love what you just said, a gospel marriage. A gospel marriage is one that, like you said, it mirrors the gospel. There are times where we have to repent to one another. There are times where we have to say to one another, I was wrong, I did wrong, I sinned against you, and I'm asking you for your forgiveness.

And sometimes it takes a minute. It's not as if it's just, okay, we forgive and forget right away. Sometimes things have to be worked through. Sometimes things actually have to be discussed and talk about how we're going to not do these things again.

So, but yes, it's a life of forgiveness. It's a life, it's a daily repentance, and it's a daily intentionality to say, I'm going to love this person with all that I have. I'm not going to let another person or other people be more important than them.

I'm not going to let another person come in and divide us or threaten our fidelity to one another. And if I see that happening, I'm going to run from it. I'm going to flee from that because not only would that be sin, but that would be destroying what God has brought together.

And what God has brought together, let not man separate. So this has just been a few minutes. And again, we're not in any way claiming we have a perfect marriage. Amen? Amen. No, we don't have a perfect marriage.

We have problems. We have issues and we have things that we have to deal with. But we love one another. And God has been so good to bring us together. And we pray that he keeps us together. That's right.

And we pray that he's going to continue to keep us together until we are with him. I have a sign that I made for Jennifer years ago, and I still believe it to be true. I used to carve signs with a router and I carved the sign out.

It said, I know we can't be married in heaven, but can I sit next to you when we get there? It's in our living room. It is in our living room. I got that. It was actually Alistair Beck who said that, and I thought it was such a sweet thing for him to say to his wife.

And so I went and carved that sign out and gave it to you because I do want to be with you for eternity in heaven as we are surrounding the throne of glory and worshiping our savior. And I'm thankful that God brought us together.

Closing Encouragement and Anniversary Sign-Off

So happy 25th anniversary.

I love you. And there's a lot about Keith, I'm just going to embarrass him now. There's a lot. I mean, you see his gifts in the pulpit, his podcasts, I mean, these videos and things, but there's a lot you probably don't know about him.

Like, I mean, he mentioned about carving the signs. He's a woodworker. He's a magician. He talked about that. He's a karate master. Sounds strange. I guess. He's a lot. He's amazing. He is the most amazing gifted person.

And I'm so thankful that he chose me.

Well, since we're doing this, I'll say the same thing. The day I met you, I just thought you were the nicest, kindest, most encouraging person, most beautiful person I'd ever met. Your eyes, big brown eyes.

You've always been my brown eyed girl. And I love you to death. And I'm thankful just to get to spend time with you. I'm thankful to be your friend, but I'm more thankful to be your husband and to get to spend my life trying to make your life better, because I feel like that's part of my job as your husband, is to give you the best life I can and point you to Christ and help you to love him more.

And I just hope I do that well. Thank you guys for watching this video. I wasn't too sappy, but we wanted to do something on our 25th anniversary. And we hope that it was an encouragement to you, especially if you're a young couple.

And if you have questions or anything you want to reach out to us, maybe you have a specific question that you're going through. Go to KeithFoskey .com. You can send us an email. We'll be happy to respond.

We want to thank you for watching. And please, if you liked the video, hit the thumbs up button.

And if you didn't, hit the down button twice.

That's right. Hit the thumbs down button twice. May God bless you. Thank you.