Celebrating a 40th Anniversary

August is the month I was married. This year we celebrate 40 years of marriage. I remember celebrating my parents’ 40th. Now it’s ours. How did that happen? I know I am blessed to be married to the same person all these years and to still be grateful for that. But, are we really the same people? We have survived too much individually and together to be anywhere like the young, invincible people we were.

We could never have imagined the journey – it’s joys or its sorrows. We could never have survived without the presence of God – the third Person in the marriage.

I look back and remember the excitement of starting our lives together – our new careers and first apartment, then our first house. We pursued Master’s degrees and welcomed our first child. Then the inevitable storms came: the premature births and deaths of two more sons; the death of a parent and a grandparent; a job loss; illness; relocation, etc.

We laughed together, cried together struggled and prayed as the years went by. The wheel of life continued to turn as we faced new challenges in our work and more losses in our family, as well as the thrill of grandchildren, new direction in our lives and the comfort of wisdom acquired along the way. That wisdom makes us appreciate the blessings in our lives, however painfully they are packaged. It makes us live in the present moment, remembering the past and not fearing the future. And, it makes us very grateful for the last 40 years and every tomorrow to come.

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