I Still Do

1991: I do. 2014: I still do. Next weekend Jerry and I will celebrate our 23rd wedding anniversary. There is such a sweetness that comes with a long marriage. Just this week my husband sent me a spontaneous text: "OMG do I ever love you." I wish more people would give marriage a long-term chance. Too many decide after a few road bumps and dips that it's not worth it. If they could only wait to get past all that! "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning" (Psalm 30:5b).

The parents of my husband's former business partner were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary when someone asked them their recipe for a long-term marriage. The wife's response has stuck with me: "DON'T LEAVE." How many of us in our marriages have thought how much easier life could be without this annoying or difficult person alongside? Be honest, now. Haven't we all been there? But just like those fleeting moments of depression that we sometimes experience over life's challenges, the dark clouds always pass and the sun bursts into brightness again and then we are so happy that we didn't allow those few moments (or days, or years) of difficulty to define the rest of our lives.

I am hardcore about hanging in there with marriage. You might call me a hang-in-there-with-marriage fanatic! I've stopped going to weddings in which I'm forced to feign happiness for a couple who have clearly made a bad choice of partner. In such instances, people do get upset with me for declining attendance, but how do you rejoice with a couple when you see storm clouds brewing before the first step down the aisle has even been taken? That said . . . once the "I-do's" have been uttered, I am a huge cheerleader for that marriage to stay intact. Those who write me out of their lives for missing their weddings don't usually know of my after-the-fact support, but I've got their backs in prayer from the moment they become man and wife. I believe that God can work out any difficult situation if we will just hang in there.

Yesterday I attended a one-day ladies' retreat at a local church. Each of us ladies was given a small rolled-up paper containing a Bible verse that we were to meditate upon during our quiet time. Mine was 2 Corinthians 12:9: " 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

If we allow Christ to pick us up in those moments of despair in our marriages, we can keep moving ahead, and the later years of sweetness are so worth it!