Thanks for the opportunity to contribute a remembrance. I have been at Mars Hill College in North Carolina for 31 years, most of that time as a teacher and from 1988-99 as chief academic officer. Wayne was a graduate of Mars Hill when it was a junior college and the college takes great pride in having had a connection to this astounding man. We had him back on campus several times, and I corresponded with him my last two years as dean in an effort to have him back one more time. He was not able to make the trip, but the correspondence was enriching. I reminded him of an experience we shared, which I was sure he had long since forgotten, that was a key lesson in my life and a generous gift on his part.

In the mid-60's, while I was working on my Ph.D. at Southern (in philosophy and theology), I was pastor for four years of the Forks of Elkhorn Baptist Church near Frankfort, Ky. A young couple in the church came to me for marital counseling. After a few sessions, I knew enough to recognize that they needed more time and more expertise than I was equipped to provide. I tried to refer this couple to a professional counselor. They would not "refer." They made it clear they were going to talk with me or with no one. I was nonplussed, out of my depth, afraid I would do them more harm than good. I went to see Wayne Oates.

As director of graduate studies, he knew me but I had never had a course with him. He graciously made time to see me; I explained my plight and asked for his advice. He suggested that I get the couple's permission to audio-tape my weekly counseling sessions with them and said, "You bring those tapes to me; we'll sit down together, listen to them, and I'll try to help you hear what they are not saying." I was astounded at this generous offer and grabbed it like a drowning man (actually, I was).

He invited one of his graduate students to participate and for many weeks we listened, talked, and I learned. The conclusion of the story is not what you might suppose. In the end, his advice was that the best thing I could do for this couple--who had what he called "a faulty covenant," and were so co-dependent (that term wasn't in use yet) that neither was capable standing alone long enough to make a decision--was to provide enough support to help them separate. Otherwise, they were going to continue to destroy each other. It was not a conclusion I ever could have reached on my own, having come from a "save the marriage at all costs" background.

Learning that there are some costs in human devastation that are too high pay was a true epiphany for me. Some 20 years later, when my own marriage foundered and, after many years of counseling and trying, continued to go downhill, I was able to survive the agony of separation and divorce in large part, I am convinced, because Wayne Oates had helped me confront the redeeming possibilities that can lie beyond that impossible possibility.

Thank you, Wayne, for your gifts to me and thousands like me.