Happy anniversary!

29 years ago today, on a cool but pleasant prairie day, my husband and I got married.  It was a church wedding, relatively small and simple.  I wore my mother’s wedding gown, the groom wore a new suit, and we each had two attendants (I had my best friend and my cousin, my husband had his best friend and his brother).  Our fathers (both Baptist ministers) both took part in our ceremony and there were several other ministers in the congregation (so we were well and truly married).  Lilacs from my mother’s garden and ivy from my aunt’s west coast garden, which she brought on the plane, were our flowers.  We were surrounded by family and friends.  After afternoon tea, served by the church ladies, we left for our honeymoon in the nearby national park.  It was a beautiful time, full of joy, love, hope and promise. 

Now, 2 kids, 4 homes, and several cars later, here we are, on a cool, grey, Maritime morning with not even the suggestion of a lilac in sight.  We are older, hopefully a little bit wiser, have a few more pounds and lot of grey hair (or in my husband’s case, a lot less hair...) and we definitely have moved way beyond that first mad blush of romance.  We have had disagreements, we have acted rashly, we have made some really bad choices.  We have faced serious house problems, and the resulting financial issues, we have experienced major health challenges and death, and we have definitely had times when we weren’t feeling the love.

We have also raised two incredible children, and worked hard to create a home which is welcoming and comfortable.  We’ve had amazing adventures (spending four months in Japan when the kids were younger is just one) and we have met so many incredible people who have become part of our extended “family.”  We have experienced the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat through our involvement with our university sports teams, and in other more personal experiences. 

So what has brought us this far together along the road of marriage, when statistically half of all marriages end in divorce?  Is it because of the centrality of faith in our lives?  I know others whose faith is just as strong as ours who have been divorced.  Is it because we have the perfect marriage, with just the right amount of give and take, and we’ve figured it all out?  I think anyone who knows us would laugh at such a notion.  (My husband and I certainly would, and our kids would blow a gasket).  We definitely have our own interests and opinions, which are not always compatible, and our personalities often clash.

I don’t know why we’ve made it this far together.  We are no longer the young, idealistic lovers we were then.  We are no stronger or no wiser than many others who haven’t made it this far.  Is it just a case of “there but for the grace of God”?   I wonder, if we could have seen then how our life together would unfold, would we have made the same decision to walk down that aisle?  Is our life together better or worse than we once imagined it would be?  I don’t know. However, I do know that I can’t imagine having the adventures and facing the challenges that we have had with anyone else.  And I know that whenever I have needed him, my husband has been there for me.  He has been my strength, my source of comfort, my encourager, my shoulder to cry on.

There is a song by Dan Fogelberg from the 1980s called “Longer.”  It is a love song, and part of it goes like this:

Through the years as the fire starts to mellow
Burning lines in the book of our lives
Though the binding cracks
And the pages start to yellow
I'll be in love with you.

I love that image.  Our book isn’t finished yet.  The binding has started to crack, and the pages are not as pristine as they were 29 years ago.  But there are a lot of empty pages left to fill, and I am looking forward to finishing the story together.  The story thus far hasn’t always been happy or pleasant, and I am sure that we will face more challenging chapters in the years to come.  But I am pretty confident that when the last word is written, it will be “love.”  Happy anniversary, to my best friend, my confidant, my husband.  Here’s to the book of our lives.