Thirty-Five Years

Thirty-five years ago on December 7, 1974, my wife Holly and I were married. I have said to our children that we were just kids and didn’t know what we were doing, and I think there is more truth to that then I care to admit. I didn’t know how great marriage could be but also how difficult and challenging. For whatever reason, I thought if you picked the right person it was easy. I am sure there have been times in our marriage where my wife wondered if she picked the right person – but then, maybe she understood more what marriage would mean than I did.

I am fond of quoting David and Vera Mace when I perform weddings. They write, “A wedding is not a marriage. A wedding is only the beginning of an undertaking that may or may not, someday, develop into a marriage. What a couple have on their wedding day is not the key to a beautiful garden, but just a vacant lot and a few gardening tools.”

A vacant lot and a few gardening tools – most of us thought we were getting more than that when we said, “I do!” The years of marriage include a lot of hard work, breaking up the soil, tossing out the rocks, pulling weeds, planting seeds. But the years of marriage, if we work at it, also yield a great garden to enjoy with your beloved. I think it also makes us better people if we will accept what marriage offers us. We learn to put the other person first, deny ourselves for a greater good, be mature rather then petty, giving rather than grasping. I am not saying that this happens automatically or easily – in fact, we will wind up doing a lot of praying in the midst of it all. But again, when we accept what marriage offers, the payoff is tremendous and the joy is sweet.

Lewis Smedes once said that his wife had been married to seven different men in her lifetime, and everyone of them was him. My wife could probably say the same. We do change, just as our lives together change. Simplistically we may divide marriage according to tasks, whether it is starting out, having children, coping with teenagers, or facing the empty nest. But we do change – we change with the passage of time and the best marriages change as well, growing deeper and wiser and greater and stronger and more loving than ever. That has certainly been my experience, and for that I am grateful.

My son Chad was married this past year, and he shared a quote with me by C. S. Lewis. Lewis talks about “falling in love” as the engine that gets a marriage started, but it takes a lot more to keep it going. For Lewis love “is a deep unity maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced (in Christian marriage) by the grace which both partners ask and receive from God.”

Those are wise words – the unity of marriage requires an act of will, a daily choice to put the other before yourself. It is strengthened by habit, which means we all should pay attention to what our marriage habits are, whether they help or hinder marriage. And marriage calls on both partners to receive and extend the grace of God.

Thirty-five years ago I said I would take Holly for better for worse, in sickness and health, for good times and bad, be we rich or poor. I didn’t really know what all that meant then – but I have to tell you, thirty-five years later I am exceedingly grateful to share my life with Holly and I can’t imagine life in any other way. My wife said that thirty-five years is a long time – but we both agree it is not long enough!