Love, Trust, Tolerance and Tenacity - Threads in the Fabric of Life

"The heart of marriage is memories; and if the two of you happen to have the same ones and can savor your reruns, then your marriage is a gift from the gods." (Bill Cosby)

The picture is fuzzy, but it is the first moment of my married life. We got married in the little country church my husband's family attended. We still go to that church these many years later. That's where a lot of those shared memories that we can rerun happened as we got up every Sunday and went to church, first as a couple and then as a family when the children came along. 

But of course, we have many other memories too. Working on the farm together. Figuring out how we were going to make ends meet when the refrigerator died or the car quit running. Nursing our kids through all the childhood fevers and illnesses. Sitting in countless church pews while Darrell sang with various Southern Gospel quartets through the years. Building a house and then building on more rooms. Watching ballgames. Freezing at track meets and band competitions. Being proud when our kids graduated high school and college. Sharing the ups and downs of a writer's life. Seeing our kids find good partners to begin their own married lives. Caring for our parents as they grew older. Grieving for loved ones who went on ahead of us. Feeling blessed each time a grandchild was born. Sharing family reunions and holidays. Celebrating anniversaries. 

“A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity. The order varies for any given year.” (Paul Sweeney)

We just celebrated one of those anniversaries yesterday. My romantic husband sent me flowers, but I had to laugh when I opened up the little card to read the note. All it said was "Dear." I guess when you've been married as long as we have, the words run out. What I really thought perhaps had happened is that the flower shop people got distracted and forgot to finish the note. But no, that wasn't it. My first comment about the words running out is closer to the truth. Darrell says he told them to put "Happy anniversary, dear." But the card already had Happy Anniversary printed on it, so all they needed to add was the dear. Made for a few smiles and who knows? Maybe another one of those memories that will get rerun at times. 

Do you have some of those rerun memories? Stories that have been told a zillion times but one more telling is still fine. You know, like the day we went out to get a cow trying to have a calf to the barn and Darrell goes to the barn to call the cow from there and leaves me to head the cow that way. The cow was having none of it and decided to charge me instead. A bit bruised and battered later, I inform Darrell if he wants the cow in the barn he'll have to herd her there himself. So many stories. So many years. So many threads that make the fabric of our life together. 

"Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads, which sew people together through the years." (Simone Sigornet)

Thanks for reading and thank those of you who wished us Happy Anniversary yesterday. We even got a card in the mail from my 97 year old church friend, Loretta. She is an amazing woman who has five children of her own and heaven knows how many grandchildren, great grandchildren and great great grandchildren, but she remembers our anniversary and my grandchildren. And on top of that she's one of those prayer warriors that unless you really want it to happen, you'd best not ask her to pray about it. 

Remember, you still have time to leave a comment here to have a chance to win Jan Watson's books. New comments on a new post gets you a new entry. I'll draw for the winner on November 27. Also you can throw your name in the hat over on Thoughts of a Sojourner to win a copy of Christmas at Harmony Hill. Check out the rules Mark posts after his review of my book. Heather, Gideon and Sophrena are making the rounds on a blog tour now with Christmas at Harmony Hill. So the reviews will start showing up and I'll hope for good ones. 

 

Celebrating an Anniversary

 

Family portrait after 15 or so anniversaries.  

A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance, and tenacity. The order varies for any given year. ~Paul Sweeney

 

 

 Forty-eight years ago I was spending my last night at home in my childhood bed. On the morrow I was getting married. Much too young. Only seventeen and barely that. My husband to be was a few years older, already twenty, but very young too. Our lives were getting ready to drastically change as we were set to begin our life together.

 

 

 I don’t remember exactly how I was feeling that night, but I’m sure I was nervous. Unsure of what to expect. Darrell may have been feeling the same. Both of us young, ignorant about the realities of adult life, but ready to be thrown into the marriage pond to see if we could swim. And somehow we stayed afloat in spite of our youth. In spite of having two kids before we’d been married three years. With the Lord's help, we kept our heads above the water as we struggled to make ends meet.

 

 

We farmed. We took care of the kids. We had loving family support. We made it year by year. The years keep piling on. Now sometimes people look at us as if being married to the same person that many years is an amazing wonder, not a normal part of living. You know the good advice about how to get older, don’t you? Keep breathing. So that’s the same with being married a lot of years. You just keep on keeping on. That’s what we’ve done the same as many other couples I know.

 

 

I once read a little story about a woman who had been married many years. When a new bride asked her advice on how to have a long and happy marriage, she told her that when she married she made a list of ten things she wouldn’t let upset her about her husband. When the younger woman asked her what those ten things where, the older woman said she didn’t remember. She simply assumed whatever came up to be friction between her and her husband was on the list and she refused to get mad about it. So perhaps she was the farmer’s wife the following quote is bragging on.

 

 

 Love is the thing that enables a woman to sing while she mops up the floor after her husband has walked across it in his barn boots. ~Hoosier Farmer

 

 

Can’t say I’ve ever been quite that understanding although I have mopped up plenty of boot tracks in my time. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t singing a happy song while I was mopping. But we are still married. And there have been many happy songs over the years.


Good times. Blessed years. Neither of us is much like we were when we married. Life pushes us along a changing course and we are made stronger by the experiences that come our way. Even so, love and commitment doesn’t have to change. We’ll keep rolling along, trying to encourage one another, enjoying the children of our children. Feeling blessed.

 

 

 May God be with you and bless you. May you see your children's children. May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings. May you know nothing but joy. From this day forward. ~Irish Blessing
 

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a wonderful week of Thanksgiving.