He's so right. Over the past twenty-five years, we've really managed to hold on to very few things. We've collectively had over a dozen different vehicles...4 dogs...3 kids...owned two homes...and yet somehow, with God's grace, just one marriage.
It isn't easy to make a marriage work in this convenience-driven, everything's disposal kind of world we live in. Let's face it, sharing your life with someone isn't always convenient. It isn't always fun. It certainly isn't always rainbows and unicorns.
There's no secret to marital success. Although having no secrets does help. Marriage is work. It takes effort to love someone when they aren't always lovable...to put up with their quirks and annoying habits day after day and year after year. Learning to overlook an offense, to forgive the unforgivable and not keep the score, well, none of that is easy to do either.
Marriage means not always getting your own way. It means sometimes giving up your right to be right. It means sometimes putting yourself on the back burner so someone else's flame can burn bright. And all that's some seriously hard stuff to do too.
So why bother with it at all? Why get married when it demands so much? Why? I'll tell you why...
Because no matter what I've invested in this marriage of ours, the dividends have always been greater. The time, energy and effort I've put in has returned to me the richest of rewards.
While I was loving him through difficult times...times when, I promise you, it would have been easier to just walk away, he was loving me that same way. When I was forgiving him for hurts he caused me...hurts I wasn't sure would ever heal...he was forgiving me for the same kinds of hurts I had caused him. When I was working like a mad woman to build a bridge to him...an often wobbly, sometimes hastily constructed bridge...he was working just as hard to build a bridge to me.
And so now, these nearly twenty-five years later, that bridge is basically complete. We don't have to build so much now as we just have to maintain. We don't have the same kinds of challenges we did when we first started. We don't make the same kinds of mistakes. Oh, we still have challenges; we still make mistakes. But they aren't the kind that cause us to question our commitment to one another or doubt our ability to stand strong together. They aren't things that would cause the bridge to fall. Now don't get me wrong, if we fail to do the routine maintenance, that bridge will be in trouble.
But as we stand together on that bridge now, we have proven ourselves to each other enough times to know we can depend wholly on each other. We know there's nothing we can't accomplish together. We know we can stand the test of time, because, well, we already have. We trust each other to keep our bridge in good repair.
So as we go into the next twenty five years where the empty nest and the effects of aging will begin to press in on us, we know we are each other's greatest ally. We know we can count on each other to be there through thick and thin. And whatever we may or not have, we know we have each other. And that's worth something for sure. It's definitely worth all the things we've gone through to get here.
As I look back over the years, think about the ups and downs, remember the good times and the bad, reflect on this life we've lived, I know for sure I'd do it all again...with him...only him...always him. Because while most things don't last, thankfully some things do.
