- Dec 20, 2019
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Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
The Herschend family, owners of Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri, and other entertainment parks, are no strangers to being in the limelight. On their special day, Jack asked Sherry, “How are we doing in our relationship?”
Sherry answered, “Jack, you’re still a work in progress.”
With a sense of humor, this couple lives out their commitment to each other one day at a time. Their three sons, nine grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren, along with many friends and relatives, celebrated this special anniversary with them. The event showcased the beauty of their marriage and their commitment to mentoring other couples.
At 17, Jack was a guide at Marvel Cave Park, a local attraction his family owned. One day in the parking lot, he met Sherry, the daughter of a fellow guide. “All the way through high school, I was terrified of girls,” Jack says, but when he met Sherry, he knew, “I had to get
a date with this girl.”
Since she owned horses, Jack thought he’d impress her with a horse ride and picnic lunch. She agreed, but there were two problems: He’d never ridden a horse, and Old Paint didn’t want to be ridden. Bolting forward at full speed to get back to the barn, “Old Paint went under every low-hanging branch he could find, trying to scrape me off,” Jack recalls. Fortunately, Jack was a wrestler in high school and put the horse’s neck in a full nelson. “I rode ‘side horse’ so only my legs would be exposed to the branches.”
Sherry and her mother, who was Jack’s fellow cave guide, couldn’t stop laughing. Sherry says, “He stayed on the horse as far as my mom and I could see him, and then disappeared over the hill. He was not going to let go.” She admired his tenacity.
Another day, they had a real date.
Jack says, “I paid 17 cents for admission to a movie, and then we had 5-cent ice cream cones at the drugstore.” Sherry wasn’t impressed with his frugality back then, but she admires it today.
At the time, Sherry was going out with several young men. Jack says, “The competition was tough.” Sherry always thought she’d marry a guy from her high school. Then a wealthy, young Air Force serviceman began showering her with bouquets and presents and daily letters.
As Sherry and Jack were getting to know each other, she was confused about who she really liked. Frugal Jack or her generous Air Force beau. When her Air Force beau was released from service, she hopped on a bus to California to see him, much to Jack’s chagrin.
The moment she set foot in the family’s mansion, her beau began to give her gifts again. Unexpectedly, his lavishness helped Sherry make up her mind.
His world is so frivolous, so material, she thought. She now says, “Everything became so apparent, with my frugal boyfriend waiting back home.”
Jack was thankful for Sherry’s decision. He had been smitten with her from the moment they met. It only took about six months for him to know he wanted to marry her. Of course, he was 18 at the time. When they finally married, Jack was 21.
Jack regrets that he was a workaholic husband. “I fell into believing the lie that quantity of time didn’t matter in my marriage,” he recalls. “Too late I learned that quality and quantity are equally important.”
Looking back, he says he wouldn’t have even tried giving advice to his younger self as a bridegroom; young Jack wouldn’t have listened to a word of it. But two years into the marriage, young Jack just might have been open to hearing older Jack’s wisdom. Today, Jack would tell his younger self, “The best marriage you can have comes after you’ve had a few [trials],” and he’d describe how awesome a great marriage can be.
Early on, Jesus became a partner in their marriage, which made it so much richer. Jack says, “We learned about prayer and praying together.” Even when they disagreed, they’d hold hands and invite Jesus into their conflict. This helped them work through some of their problems.
Throughout their marriage, Jack has given himself a grade whenever he reads 1 Corinthians 13. He sees it as an opportunity to stop and say, “Whoa! I need to work on being humble” or some other quality. As Sherry has watched him methodically study this passage over the years and apply it in their relationship, she’s better able to put up with the times he has inadvertently hurt her feelings. Living out their faith has helped them grow as a couple.
At one point, they went to a marriage conference with Gary Smalley, the co-author of The Two Sides of Love, and learned about the marriage contract. As part of this exercise, Jack and Sherry wrote down each of their needs in the relationship. Then they made a list of the things they liked to do together, such as having adventures and taking risks. Once they signed the document, it became a tool for them to refer to. This sheet helped them remember that at one time they had agreed on these things.
If Sherry could have given advice to herself on her wedding day, she knows exactly what she would have said: “Don’t try to change your spouse. Change yourself.” She also feels that a lot of the conflict in their marriage could have been averted if she hadn’t expected Jack to meet all her needs. “I waited for him to do that, until I realized I wasn’t going to have any quality of life if I kept expecting that from him.” Knowing she was responsible for her own life, even
as a married woman, was key.
Of course, these lessons came from hard experiences. At one point in their marriage, Sherry felt they were in a severe drought. She and Jack were still doing all the right things: They’d talk about conflict, ask for forgiveness, and try to do better. But the connectedness was missing, and she’d had enough.
She went to their houseboat, determined to leave Jack, and locked herself inside. Her resolve was firm until a small-group friend camped outside her door in 7-degree weather for over an hour. Sherry finally invited this dedicated friend inside to warm up, and they talked.
“Having somebody listen to you is important,” she says. Sharing with a friend helped her realize that “Jack didn’t understand my needs because I hadn’t made them clear.”
Jack and Sherry both came from divorced families and didn’t know how to be in a healthy relationship. They started to rely on counseling, marriage retreats,
a lot of prayer and the counsel of good friends. Sherry says, “We needed counseling—lots of it—until I started realizing that it wasn’t up to Jack to make me complete. I had him on a pedestal, and the first thing I learned was I had to knock him off that pedestal.”
“I hated when she did that,” Jack says with a smile.
Jack believes that when people get married, they need to surround themselves with a community of believers. The community can be there to encourage and help couples when they go through rocky periods in their relationships. A bunch of people rooting for a couple’s marriage is beautiful.
As Jack and Sherry’s marriage grew healthier, they wanted to give back and help others. They liked the dynamic of couples meeting together to share their victories and failures, with a counselor guiding them. So when Greg Smalley was the president of the National Institute of Marriage (NIM), a nonprofit organization that helped married couples whose relationships were in crisis, Jack and Sherry were interested in learning more.
Jack was asked to be the chairman of NIM, but before he agreed, he wanted to see how the program worked. As a couple, they decided to attend one of the four-day intensives.
He says, “At breakfast on the first morning, Sherry bebopped around to five very troubled couples who weren’t speaking to each other.” The room was icy, but that didn’t bother Sherry. She went from table to table and made small talk with everyone.
In this intensive, the husbands of all five couples had been unfaithful. The first day, Jack and Sherry listened to their hopelessness, and Jack remembers thinking there was no way any of these couples were going to survive. Before attending, all five had talked to divorce attorneys.
Then two days later, each couple was holding hands and had forgiven each other. Jack says, “I couldn’t wait to be a part of something that could create that kind of miraculous change in couples.”
After that intensive, Jack and Sherry began working with and supporting NIM. Later, Focus on the Family acquired NIM and formed what is now Hope Restored. Jack says, “I’m proud of the fact that we’ve had the opportunity to impact other marriages for good.”
The post Jack & Sherry Herrschend: Their story of marriage, mentoring & servicePrint Content appeared first on Focus on the Family.
Continue reading...
The Herschend family, owners of Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri, and other entertainment parks, are no strangers to being in the limelight. On their special day, Jack asked Sherry, “How are we doing in our relationship?”
Sherry answered, “Jack, you’re still a work in progress.”
With a sense of humor, this couple lives out their commitment to each other one day at a time. Their three sons, nine grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren, along with many friends and relatives, celebrated this special anniversary with them. The event showcased the beauty of their marriage and their commitment to mentoring other couples.
Where it all began
At 17, Jack was a guide at Marvel Cave Park, a local attraction his family owned. One day in the parking lot, he met Sherry, the daughter of a fellow guide. “All the way through high school, I was terrified of girls,” Jack says, but when he met Sherry, he knew, “I had to get
a date with this girl.”
Since she owned horses, Jack thought he’d impress her with a horse ride and picnic lunch. She agreed, but there were two problems: He’d never ridden a horse, and Old Paint didn’t want to be ridden. Bolting forward at full speed to get back to the barn, “Old Paint went under every low-hanging branch he could find, trying to scrape me off,” Jack recalls. Fortunately, Jack was a wrestler in high school and put the horse’s neck in a full nelson. “I rode ‘side horse’ so only my legs would be exposed to the branches.”
Sherry and her mother, who was Jack’s fellow cave guide, couldn’t stop laughing. Sherry says, “He stayed on the horse as far as my mom and I could see him, and then disappeared over the hill. He was not going to let go.” She admired his tenacity.
Another day, they had a real date.
Jack says, “I paid 17 cents for admission to a movie, and then we had 5-cent ice cream cones at the drugstore.” Sherry wasn’t impressed with his frugality back then, but she admires it today.
A frugal choice
At the time, Sherry was going out with several young men. Jack says, “The competition was tough.” Sherry always thought she’d marry a guy from her high school. Then a wealthy, young Air Force serviceman began showering her with bouquets and presents and daily letters.
As Sherry and Jack were getting to know each other, she was confused about who she really liked. Frugal Jack or her generous Air Force beau. When her Air Force beau was released from service, she hopped on a bus to California to see him, much to Jack’s chagrin.
The moment she set foot in the family’s mansion, her beau began to give her gifts again. Unexpectedly, his lavishness helped Sherry make up her mind.
His world is so frivolous, so material, she thought. She now says, “Everything became so apparent, with my frugal boyfriend waiting back home.”
Jack was thankful for Sherry’s decision. He had been smitten with her from the moment they met. It only took about six months for him to know he wanted to marry her. Of course, he was 18 at the time. When they finally married, Jack was 21.
Jack’s story
Jack regrets that he was a workaholic husband. “I fell into believing the lie that quantity of time didn’t matter in my marriage,” he recalls. “Too late I learned that quality and quantity are equally important.”
Looking back, he says he wouldn’t have even tried giving advice to his younger self as a bridegroom; young Jack wouldn’t have listened to a word of it. But two years into the marriage, young Jack just might have been open to hearing older Jack’s wisdom. Today, Jack would tell his younger self, “The best marriage you can have comes after you’ve had a few [trials],” and he’d describe how awesome a great marriage can be.
Early on, Jesus became a partner in their marriage, which made it so much richer. Jack says, “We learned about prayer and praying together.” Even when they disagreed, they’d hold hands and invite Jesus into their conflict. This helped them work through some of their problems.
Throughout their marriage, Jack has given himself a grade whenever he reads 1 Corinthians 13. He sees it as an opportunity to stop and say, “Whoa! I need to work on being humble” or some other quality. As Sherry has watched him methodically study this passage over the years and apply it in their relationship, she’s better able to put up with the times he has inadvertently hurt her feelings. Living out their faith has helped them grow as a couple.
At one point, they went to a marriage conference with Gary Smalley, the co-author of The Two Sides of Love, and learned about the marriage contract. As part of this exercise, Jack and Sherry wrote down each of their needs in the relationship. Then they made a list of the things they liked to do together, such as having adventures and taking risks. Once they signed the document, it became a tool for them to refer to. This sheet helped them remember that at one time they had agreed on these things.
Sherry’s story
If Sherry could have given advice to herself on her wedding day, she knows exactly what she would have said: “Don’t try to change your spouse. Change yourself.” She also feels that a lot of the conflict in their marriage could have been averted if she hadn’t expected Jack to meet all her needs. “I waited for him to do that, until I realized I wasn’t going to have any quality of life if I kept expecting that from him.” Knowing she was responsible for her own life, even
as a married woman, was key.
Of course, these lessons came from hard experiences. At one point in their marriage, Sherry felt they were in a severe drought. She and Jack were still doing all the right things: They’d talk about conflict, ask for forgiveness, and try to do better. But the connectedness was missing, and she’d had enough.
She went to their houseboat, determined to leave Jack, and locked herself inside. Her resolve was firm until a small-group friend camped outside her door in 7-degree weather for over an hour. Sherry finally invited this dedicated friend inside to warm up, and they talked.
“Having somebody listen to you is important,” she says. Sharing with a friend helped her realize that “Jack didn’t understand my needs because I hadn’t made them clear.”
Jack and Sherry both came from divorced families and didn’t know how to be in a healthy relationship. They started to rely on counseling, marriage retreats,
a lot of prayer and the counsel of good friends. Sherry says, “We needed counseling—lots of it—until I started realizing that it wasn’t up to Jack to make me complete. I had him on a pedestal, and the first thing I learned was I had to knock him off that pedestal.”
“I hated when she did that,” Jack says with a smile.
Helping others
Jack believes that when people get married, they need to surround themselves with a community of believers. The community can be there to encourage and help couples when they go through rocky periods in their relationships. A bunch of people rooting for a couple’s marriage is beautiful.
As Jack and Sherry’s marriage grew healthier, they wanted to give back and help others. They liked the dynamic of couples meeting together to share their victories and failures, with a counselor guiding them. So when Greg Smalley was the president of the National Institute of Marriage (NIM), a nonprofit organization that helped married couples whose relationships were in crisis, Jack and Sherry were interested in learning more.
Jack was asked to be the chairman of NIM, but before he agreed, he wanted to see how the program worked. As a couple, they decided to attend one of the four-day intensives.
He says, “At breakfast on the first morning, Sherry bebopped around to five very troubled couples who weren’t speaking to each other.” The room was icy, but that didn’t bother Sherry. She went from table to table and made small talk with everyone.
In this intensive, the husbands of all five couples had been unfaithful. The first day, Jack and Sherry listened to their hopelessness, and Jack remembers thinking there was no way any of these couples were going to survive. Before attending, all five had talked to divorce attorneys.
Then two days later, each couple was holding hands and had forgiven each other. Jack says, “I couldn’t wait to be a part of something that could create that kind of miraculous change in couples.”
After that intensive, Jack and Sherry began working with and supporting NIM. Later, Focus on the Family acquired NIM and formed what is now Hope Restored. Jack says, “I’m proud of the fact that we’ve had the opportunity to impact other marriages for good.”
The post Jack & Sherry Herrschend: Their story of marriage, mentoring & servicePrint Content appeared first on Focus on the Family.
Continue reading...