40 Years

Today I celebrate my 40th wedding anniversary. A lot has happened in 40 years:

My husband earned two Bachelor degrees.
I earned a Master’s degree.
We raised two daughters.
Both daughters got married to wonderful men.
We added a granddaughter and two grandsons to the family.
We lost a son-in-law to cancer.
We’ve been through sickness and health, and several surgeries.
We’ve been better, and we’ve been worse. We went through many dark times, and we’ve had happy times.
We’ve been through the poorer (living paycheck to paycheck) and through the richer (it’s amazing how much easier it is to make that paycheck stretch when the kids are out of the house). We never went without food, clothing, shelter, or any other necessities. We may not have had everything we wanted, but we had everything we needed. God provided above and beyond.

Forty years have not been easy. It has taken total commitment to make it this far. I made a promise that only death would part us. I think many young people rush into marriage thinking it will be sunshine and roses. Then when the storms begin to blow they decide to bail on the marriage. It takes grit and determination to make a marriage last. You have to give up on your fairytale expectations and make your expectations more realistic.

What’s nice about reaching this point is that our relationship has evolved into a comfortable acceptance of each other. We can laugh with each other. We can still get exasperated with each other, but it’s over quickly.

I didn’t know what we were going to be in for 40 years ago. I still don’t know what the future is going to hold. I DO know that God will be there to guide, comfort, strengthen, and bless.