Wedding Wishes

May you love deeply, laugh heartily, practice patience,
and smile often.

May you dream together, grow, be crazy, give, give in
and trust enough to take.

May you see many sunrises, listen to the rain,
and savor special moments.

May you rediscover each other, listen carefully,
and always have open hearts.

May you have health, happiness, and a lifetime of rich adventure.

These wishes are from a card given to Karen and me on our wedding day.

I was feeling melancholy and looking to do anything else but what I was doing (writing for the blog) when I decided to go through a desk drawer. There tucked away neatly with a whole host of other items that brought tears and laughter I found the card. I had everything this card wished for and more. I have much to be thankful for and I must choose to be thankful for what I had and let go of the emotions surrounding what I don’t. I must take the hopes and dreams that included having Karen by my side and lay them at the feet of God. I must realize that she never belonged to me anyway. She was simply on loan to me for a season.

The summer months see many weddings. It is always a highlight for me to see starry eyed couples. I wonder how many of us actually pay attention to those vows we took on our special day. I think our country’s divorce rate would be much lower if we understood the difference between a suggestion and a vow. I will love you until death does us part or until I can’t stand the sight of you anymore? The most used reason for divorce in our country is irreconcilable differences.

I’m not a marriage counselor and I’m certainly not trying to become one but when I hear the term irreconcilable I think of finances run amuck. It is difficult to reconcile an account that we haven’t paid attention to, watching the details, changes and making adjustments where necessary to keep the account reconciled.

When I was in high school I had a checking account that never had much money but I knew the balance, the interest it earned and when to expect the statements. I knew the account well and it was a cinch to reconcile every month. Towards the end of my senior year, I stopped paying attention to the account. I wrote checks without accounting for them properly, I didn’t pay close attention to the monthly statements and not so surprisingly I started bouncing checks and a whole host of other issues began to pop up. It took me a long time to get the account back to where it once was and there was a great deal of unnecessary drama. All these things occurred because I simply didn’t pay attention.

I realize not all of us are called to marriage, but for those that are to keep marriages strong and growing it is vital to make every effort not to take for granted the person next to us. I’ve been told that my marriage to Karen was like a storybook fairytale. In some ways it was, but we had “loud discussions” (Rachel’s way of saying mom and dad are arguing), times when we took each other for granted, and times when we simply didn’t want to see even the sight of one another. Satan has used these times against me since Karen’s passing, but I refuse to dwell on them, instead I will grow from them. I was married to my best friend though sometimes I simply lost sight of that. I let pride; selfishness and a busy life cause me to loose sight of how amazing it was that someone so lovely, generous and kind could love me.

Whether you’ve been married for a month or fifty years, my advice is simple, the best things in life truly are free. Forgive one another, talk to one another, take your girl on a walk, on a moonlit night stare at the heavens together with the wonder of children, watch a sunrise or sunset, do something crazy together and always choose to cherish each other deeply. Honor your wedding vows and each other. Pay attention! Love today together like a tomorrow together may not come.