Loving In The Midst
Fifty years is a really long time. Fifty years is a half a century. How could we have spent fifty years together as husband and wife? On December 27th, 2018, Roger and I celebrated our fiftieth wedding anniversary by spending a week at a beach condo with our five children, their spouses, and ten grandchildren. One of our sons in law announced us at the family talent show as “the ones who literally made this possible”. That is a rather surreal thought. Fifty years ago there were two of us. Today there are 22 of us. I think back to that night fifty years ago when we promised to love each other until “death did us part”. We had no idea what a daunting promise that would prove to be. Love is definitely more than a feeling. It is a feeling, but many many many days it was a commitment to be faithful and to never quit on our relationship and to trust God with the mystery of loving when there was no feeling to go on. Many people supported our promise along the way. There were Bible study leaders, counselors, teachers, family members, pastors, friends, our children, our parents, authors of helpful books, and speakers who never knew us. Building a fifty year marriage is not something you do by yourself. We are deeply grateful that on the days when we wanted to walk away that we chose not to, not because we were able but because God and a huge support team held us up. We stood on the shoulders of so many in order to keep our promises to each other.
Our passion through the years has been to be the shoulders that other people stand on in order to be able to keep their promises. It has been a joy and a privilege to use our own journey of growth to enable others who are struggling to have hope and to choose faithfulness.
As we were together for a week in a condo on the beach with noisy, chaotic, relating to each other, I was reminded again of the messiness of life and the value of continuing to place a high priority on loving in the midst of all that is involved in being a family.
From our family to yours, we pray for each of you the joy of discovering building a legacy moment by moment and day by day. It is so worth it.