Marriage - A Journey

 Next week my wife and I will celebrate our 57th anniversary. I always thought people who reached their 50^th were old.  Why aren’t we?  I still feel young when I look in her eyes. We blew past our 50^th.  

  December 21, 1968 we exchanged vows.  I lifted her veil, kissed her and we left the altar hand-in-hand to start a journey that has spanned more than half a century.  We left the church in my 1960 Chevy Impala, the kind with fins. I opened her door, she took her seat, and we started our journey.  No seatbelts! Apollo 8 launched the day we were married, the first manned flight to leave earth’s orbit.  Neither of us imagined the journey we started that day would take us “to the moon and back.”  Or so it seems.

 We have embraced orphans in Brazil and watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace; viewed Michelangelo’s painting in the Sistine Chapel and visited St Peter’s Basilica; walked along the canals of Venice; stood on the mountains overlooking Salzburg; watched the striking of the clock in Prague; spent a summer in  Nuremburg and rode the trains across Bavaria;  visited Luther’s House in Wittenburg and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s home in Berlin; toured the DMZ between North and South Korea, met at 6 am to pray with believers at a Korean church in Seoul.  We stood where Jesus stood on he shore of the Sea of Galilee and walked the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem.

 You can go a lot of places and see a lot of things in 50 years.

 We have experienced sorrow and loss, the death of parents and loved ones. We have wept beside their caskets, said our goodbyes and comforted one another.  We have known discouragement and disappointment.  We have celebrated victory and accomplishment. We have wondered in awe at the miracle of children and grandchildren.  We have experienced God’s presence, seen His glory and worshipped in many languages.

 At our wedding my college roommate sang Savior Like A Shepherd Lead Us.  It is still our song.

Savior, like a shepherd lead us, much we need Thy tender care;
In Thy pleasant pastures feed us, for our use Thy folds prepare.
We are Thine, Thou dost befriend us, be the Guardian of our way;
Keep Thy flock, from sin defend us, seek us when we go astray.
Thou hast promised to receive us, poor and sinful though we be;
Thou hast mercy to relieve us, grace to cleanse and pow’r to free.
Early let us seek Thy favor, early let us do Thy will;
Blessed Lord and only Savior, with Thy love our bosoms fill.

Our faith, our gratitude and our love for one another is far deeper than it was on the day we climbed into my ’60 Chevy.  We know that old age will come, dying will come and our parting will come.  But we know better than we knew in our youth that His grace is sufficient.  His promise is true.  “You who have been borne by Me from birth and have been carried from the womb; even to your old age I will be the same, and even to your graying years I will bear you! I have done it, and I will carry you; and I will bear you and I will deliver you,” (Isaiah 46:3-5)

My book, The Jesus Encounter, is FREE as an eBook on Amazon this week, Dec. 16-20.