On Sunday, August 5th, I will celebrate my 45th wedding anniversary. I honestly can’t believe it has been 45 years. I sometimes still feel like the innocent young girl with love blinded eyes that I was in 1967. Then again, I more often feel like the very experienced, not quite so love blinded wife that I am today.
I remember things I used to think were so darn cute in our early years. Those same things drive me nuts today. Things like the fact that he still can’t make a bed to where it doesn’t look like someone is still in it. Or how he still sneaks drinks right from the carton. How he leaves a used knife on top of the butter dish in the refrigerator because he doesn’t want to fill up the sink with a bunch of dirty ones. And there’s his amazing sense of where we are at any given time when traveling (he never gets lost) which is offset by his 45 year can’t-find-the-dishwasher disability.
We’ve traveled a lot of miles in our 45 years – through fields of new babies, narrow roads of grief, highways of financial stress, up hills strewn with misunderstanding, down valleys of laughter, around corners of angry words and right through intersections of intense love that met moments of ‘who is this man and what am I doing here?”
We have a son we won’t meet until we get to heaven, two daughters and a son who showed us heaven on earth (as well as a little of the other place when they were teens). We’ve gained a plethora of gifted grandchildren.
Our house is the same one we moved into on our wedding day, but it is now a home. We’ve known a veritable kennel of dogs and cats, had a barn full of horses and mules, grown a variety of crops, mowed billions of blades of grass, pulled, poisoned and put up with every weed known to man.
We have more stuff than we could possibly remember or find if we needed it. (Our children will hate us when we are gone.)
We have seen so many changes over the years I can’t possibly name them.
But by God’s grace, there are so many things that haven’t changed. He still makes me laugh over the dumbest things. He still makes my heart beat faster when he kisses me. I still beam with pride over his work ethic, honesty and ability to do anything he puts his mind to. His heart is still soft. His mind is still sharp. His habits are still annoying.
Today I tried to imagine not being married and I found I don’t have the slightest idea what that was like. “We” is so much more than “I” ever was.
Am I saying it’s been 45 years of bliss? Of course not. Every journey is a lot of work. The best ones are those where you had milestones when you didn’t think you’d make it but you did. You don’t feel like you’ve accomplished a worthwhile task if you don’t have some sore muscles afterward.
After 45 years I’ve figured out that what hasn’t changed so far probably ain’t gonna. I’ve discovered new things can still happen in an old marriage. There’s still some of that fresh faced young boy in the man and some of that blushing young girl in the woman. God has blessed us mightily, buoyed us up in some tough times, given some great golden moments, helped us laugh at ourselves and sort the major from the minor.
In retrospect, even the bad has been good in the long run. Looking ahead I’m just thankful that we are still looking ahead together.
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” Eph 5:31
