My Tribute to Ray

Ray Sammons is my husband’s father, and while many women are deeply blessed by the men who raised their husbands, I know that I have been uniquely loved by this wonderful man.

When God delivered Steve into my
then-chaotic life, He knew I needed Ray equally as much.

It was 2003. I was stepping blindly through the heavy fog of grief following my father’s death, and the final acceptance of a failed marriage. In that moment of helplessness, Ray Sammons’ brilliant clarity of the theology of God’s perfect love was the most earth shattering of all my shatteredness.

I didn’t know what grace meant.

How had I missed it … all this time? Was it only visible because I came to the end of my self?

Ray introduced me to the Apostle Paul.  I’d never met him so real.

Ray escorted me like a doe-eyed child through Paul’s life, his voice, his famous journeys.  A Doctor of Economics and a Master Theologian, Ray Sammons has the uncanny ability and joyful desire to put great men of the Bible in sneakers (as he likes to say).  He brings them to life so we can know them more closely.

In that same year, Steve gave me my first bible. To him it was natural. He wasn’t trying to sell me something, he simply realized I didn’t have one. I grew up in a church, but where do I start? Ray opened up the Book for me by gently and lovingly walking through the table of contents. Remember I was in the middle of utter brokenness.  Ray knew I was feeble. First Five. History. Prophets. Jesus. Paul. I had never heard the story like this.  Unwrapping this gift one word at a time. He knew it was all I needed.

He said the words to me that my 40-year-old bones had never absorbed from my own father: There’s nothing you can do to change how very much I love you.

And Ray, along with Phyllis his beloved wife of 54 years, taught my husband to love. Now, Steve and I have a marriage that will change the course of our children’s lives … and their children’s lives.

With Ray we laugh about everything.

• Ray likes PC, I like Mac. This might be his only fault. But what’s that iPad in his hand?

• He’s from the other side of the Mississippi and I’m from this side. He was raised in the Wild West and I was raised by a refined English immigrant. The other perspective is good.

• I didn’t know what a borrow-ditch was, because in Michigan we just called it a ditch. We never saw one actually being made.

• I didn’t know the difference between a Guernsey and a Holstein. But Ray raised, shot, dressed, castrated and ate animals that I’d only seen in handy sizes in grocery store packaging. (I didn’t even attempt to put those activities in order.)

• We’re both lexiphiles so we can have fun from any distance and on any topic.

• Ray loves my Mom and sees her as an angel, too.

• Ray is a true entrepreneur just like my Dad was.

I’ve also been lucky enough to be in the back seat of a Cessna four-seater when Ray took the yoke, guiding us in a [squealing] joyful dance with the clouds. An accomplished and natural pilot, Ray flies, and becomes part of the plane itself.  It’s amazing.

Today is Ray’s 80^th birthday. 

Today I look around my life, and I see my whole family moved and changed by the love of Ray Sammons.  And one of the greatest most humbling parts of the whole picture? My first-born son Erik is now at the University originally sought out by Ray Sammons in 1950-something.

Ray was in the military in the Philippines when he was keenly struck by the character of another serviceman who loved God and His word.  Ray wanted what he had, so he put himself in the school that shaped that man: Multnomah University in Portland Oregon.  That’s where Ray met his bride Phyllis.  It’s where my husband spent a year studying and it’s now where my son is being shaped and celebrated and prepared for a wildly successful life of love and exploration.

Erik is a Junior now and a Captain on the basketball team. He shines so brightly because of who he is and where he is.

Hooray! Riley and Jack have Beeka and Grandpa here in our home today… to hug and hear.

Ray Sammons continues to lift my life through an always-new walk with God, and I know I am one of hundreds who would call him Pastor. So even though I must reluctantly accept that I’m not the only one, I do know that I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him. And that feels like a one-in-a-million-lifetimes kind of story.

Happy Birthday Dad!

With more love than you’ll know, your daughter.