We have got to that stage of life where everything seems to speed up, no doubt accelerated by our rapidly growing children. As Daughter No. 1 often reminds us, “I’ll be 16 next year.” (Actually, as her birthday is in December it is nearly two years until she turns 16, but that “next year” carries a lot of emotional heft – it will come very soon.)
18 years is a decent stretch of time. We feel we’ve got some experience behind us now. And – tragically – we find ourselves amongst a shrinking number of our peers who are still together – too many of our 40-something, attempting-to-recapture-their-youth, mid-life-disappointment-shaped friends have seen marriages crumble. It is amazing how much this affects our own children, who have known nothing but stability. The effects of our divorce culture are so deep and so pernicious that none of us is left untouched by it.
So I am continually grateful for the grace that is mine in the Grace given to me. Our speeding days are good ones, and the 6,574 days we have been married have been incredibly blessed ones. It is easy to take for granted what has become familiar through the passage of time, but I don’t think we have yet made that mistake. Instead we continue to grow together, and surprise one another, and find grace in each other.
We have had 18 incredible, grace saturated years, but there is so much more grace to discover yet.
1 comment:
I enjoyed reading this. My husband and I have been married 25 year on 14th april 2012. I was reading your position paper on divorce and remarriage (May 2010. I found myself agreeing with it all but I did feel really sad about the divorced man not being able to be an elder even if the divorce was clearly adultery on his first wife's part. This is our situation, but it was over 30 years ago and yet we still feel judged by it. What about the character of a man who got his wife pregnant as a christian, before marriage? Would that not rule him out as an excellent model? Beyond reproach? This is the case with the lead elder at our NF church?
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