I do love weddings! For twelve years, I was a wedding coordinator at Wheaton Bible Church. During that time, I found that my very favorite weddings were when a couple is in their 30’s or older and getting married for the first time. Their happiness is so contagious and it would cause Bob and I to sit in the back row and hold hands and remember how we had fallen in love. My new best favorite type of wedding is when two people have lost their spouses and have found love again.
Rhonda Williams’s husband, Tom was such a very special person. He was a head surgeon at Central DuPage Hospital. He was helpful, effervescent, did many missionary trips, and lots of fun. He was also the best friend of our pastor, Rob Bugh. They owned a ski boat together and were both barefoot water skiers. Tom died at age 49 in April 2005 after having been sick for only four months with throat cancer. He has three children. Tom had so much to offer. God had other plans.
Our pastor’s wife, Carol Bugh was beautiful inside and out. She was a quiet woman of faith and kept her home and family of three daughters and a son functioning with Rob’s demanding schedule. She was also fun loving and athletic, a skier and climber. She was diagnosed with colon cancer and died one year later in August of 2006 at age 50.
Those two deaths rocked our church and we grieved deeply. People in the congregation began to pray for Rhonda and Rob. Though afraid to mention it out loud, they wondered in their hearts if Rhonda and Rob could find love again and maybe with each other. And yes, they have.
Our pastor Rob and Rhonda Williams (a pediatrician) will always miss their first loves, Carol and Tom. But God has given them a second opportunity at love. They are so very cute together like teenagers almost. We are thrilled that they will be married next weekend. Their love story makes me smile. We wish them much happiness!
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