“Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” (Gal. 6:9)
Dearest daughters,
Today, Dad and I are celebrating twenty-nine years of marriage.
I remember this day vividly, twenty-nine years ago, the awe, the fear, even the trembling I felt in my soul as I prepared to make such a momentous, lifelong decision. Was my perspective truly right? Was my love what it needed to be? Above all, I did not want to let Dad or God down.
I knew Dad saw more in me than I even believed myself to be. And I knew God was counting on me to be a reflection of His love.
My mom was busy preparing my little sister for the wedding in my bedroom, so I spent that morning in my brother’s bedroom, praying, pacing the floor, getting down on my knees.
“God, help me to do this,” I prayed. “Help me to bring glory to You in this marriage. Don’t let my shortfalls change the trajectory You have for my life.”
There was such a weighty feeling that morning. But the moment I made that commitment with my mouth—“I do take this man to be my husband, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health”—it was as if those words cut through the cloud of heaviness, and I saw the light of love like never before.
Now, twenty-nine years later, I realize I was only barely seeing a glimmer of the shine our love would become. It has only grown brighter.
Not one single day has gone by that I have not repeatedly declared my love to your father, and he to me. And it is my wish and prayer that each of you will have a marriage like Dad and I have had.
Our marriage has far exceeded my expectations, and I owe this in part to my own father, who told me from the beginning, “Marriage will not be about you. If you go into it to see what you can get out of it, you will be disappointed. Marriage will be about God being made more visible through your union, through your overcoming, through the way you work through your trials. And it will take a lot of work.”
So I came into marriage expecting a challenge. And because of that, I found the challenges to be part of the adventure.
Let me give you an analogy.
If I go down to the car to leave, running late for church, and realize I have left my keys upstairs in the bedroom of our large farmhouse, I resent every step back through that house. I resent that my bedroom is upstairs. I resent every step back down. It all takes longer. It’s all an inconvenience to me getting on my way. The stairs and the house itself become adversaries to my purpose.
But if I am preparing to take a beautiful alpine mountain hike with your father in a month, I count every step. I am thrilled that my bedroom is upstairs and that our house sits at the top of a hill. I take every step as preparation, as a challenge making me more fit for my goal.
This is the attitude that will shape your marriage.
If our attitude is that everything is a hindrance to our own purposes, then every request, every difference of viewpoint, every need in our spouse or children will begin to feel like they’re in the way of our life and our agenda. And little by little, we will begin to resent our marriage.
But if we believe marriage is a chance to prove to the enemy that love triumphs, then every difference of opinion, every inconvenience, every sorrow becomes a chance, an exercise. It becomes a stairway to climb in preparation for standing on the mountain that declares love will triumph over hate, life over death, and that we are part of the winning team.
So may you view each day of your marriage as steps preparing you for the mountain view, not as inconveniences keeping you from the journey of your own independent life.
May you be blessed with a marriage like mine.
May you hear love from your spouse every day, and may you give it every hour, so that on your twenty-ninth anniversary, you can say with me:
I would do it all over again!
And though I was head over heels in love on day one, I barely knew what love was compared to what I feel today.
With all my love,
Mom