Our love started out like most couples: young, inexperienced, and some naivety. We spoke our vows and threw ourselves into young love. What we didn’t totally understand was that some of the loving feelings and emotions fade and then love as a lifelong commitment begins. 

That was 48 years ago this month! It’s hard to believe that much time has passed. I had brown hair at one time and Mary, well, she still has brown hair, compliments of Clairol. 

We thought we knew all about love, but we were only beginning to discover how that love would be tested and tried over and over. Honestly, as we look back, it was pretty shallow, but we didn’t give up and love definately deepened over time. 

There were romantic getaways, not so romantic trials, date nights and stretches during child raising years in which we felt like we barely hung on to our shared vision. 

We’re now married long enough to have experienced sickness and health, lack and prosperity, pain and triumph. We have weathered many storms with children, with the loss of parents, and with disappointment from prayers not answered in our imagined outcome. We can look back and give thanks for it is those things that make our love what it is today. Forty-eight years of repeated “I do’s,” 48 years of fun and laughter, 48 years of traveling around the world and ministering the love of Jesus together, and 48 years of praying together. 

Don’t give up on your marriage. Remember your vows spoken to one another, to God and to those who attended your wedding. Remember why God called you together. Remember your mission as a couple and remember young love growing deeper every day into “older/deeper love.”

Jesus said it this way: ⁴ “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’^[5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? ⁶ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6)