50 Years of I Do’s
When I was little I used to love to look at my parents’ wedding album. There was something about the worn ivory cover and gold lined trim of the pages that made it feel like I was opening some sort of treasure book which held secrets to the past. Side note, yes, I was weird: I loved looking at the pictures of my parents before I knew them and getting a glimpse of what the day looked like as they held hands and made vows to each other for better or worse, for richer or poorer.
Approximately 50 years later, as the sunset painted magnificent reds, pinks, yellows and even deep blues across the sky, I watched my parents, now much older, wiser, and a little more wrinkly, renew their promises to each other at their 50th wedding anniversary celebration. 50 years! 50 trips around the sun; 18,250 days spent living out vows together as a married couple. Sitting there, I couldn’t help but think of the young couple from the wedding album that I used to idolize as a child and wonder if that couple, full of hope and expectation, knew what they were signing up for as they spoke their vows. I also found myself wondering if somehow I could Marty McFly my way back in time and have a conversation with the younger version of my parents, what I would say to them.
In a celebratory time like this you would think I would lead with the richer and better and tell them of all the adventures, love, and laughter they would share. However, watching my parents sit, because they’re just too old to stand that long anymore, and listen to the pastor talk about love and 1972, I couldn’t help but think that I would tell them it was going to be a hard, rocky road. I would tell them that there would be a lot of worse and poorer days when they would have to love with more than feelings. They would need to learn how to forgive and ask for forgiveness. They would need to examine the plank in their own eye before pointing out the speck in their spouse’s. There would even be days when one or both of them would want to leave.
But what I wouldn’t tell them is not to do it. For while their road is marked with struggle, it is also the same road that refines them and their love for each other. This young googly-eyed couple probably doesn’t want to think about the struggle, about the worse and poorer times, but I would tell them that their little girl thinks that it is the struggle that makes their love beautiful.
It’s beautiful because on the other side of the hard, battle-type seasons there comes a season filled with deep joy, and a lot of better days that are richer and more fulfilling than they ever could imagine. It’s not because they will discover some magic secret to marriage, but in the fight they will find the grace of a God who is in the business of making broken things whole. They will find the love of a savior who showed them what sacrificial love looked like and they will grow to love each other like Jesus did.
Finally I would tell them, “thank you.” Thank you for choosing and fighting for your family. For in the wake of choosing and their daily “I do’s,” they will leave a legacy of marriage that will allow their children and grandchildren to experience a home that has healing, peace, and Christ at the center.
I’m certain that the youthful and untested couple captured in the pages of my favorite old ivory treasure book could never imagine a love so rich birthed out of a road so rocky. What newlywed couple could? The road never looks the way we imagine. But as Ann Voskamp says in her book, Waymaker, “Maybe it doesn’t matter how your road turns, but it matters who you turn and attach to.” Young mom and dad, I know I can speak for your children, your son-in law, and your three growing grandsons and say that we are all so blessed that you attached to Christ and to each other and even when the old ivory treasure book closes, the impact of your covenant love will continue for generations to come.