What's Love Got to do With It?

People are constantly stopping us at church and asking us the secret to our happy marriage. And I’d like to think it’s because I have always been…okay, okay. So nobody has ever asked us that. But with our boys getting married last summer followed by our 25th anniversary, I have had several occasions to stop and ask myself, “How in the world did we make it this far?”

Last week I received a letter from a college friend. She was creative and loved to laugh, so you might know we’d hit it off from the start. The guys she dated were outgoing as well, and I remember being surprised when she married, of all things, a Math major. (There’s nothing fun about that!) But she had graduated with honors and was working in the field she loved, so I chalked it up to ‘opposites attract’ and continued to admire her life.

I’m not sure who left Lubbock first, but for a few years we exchanged Christmas letters and photos, and eventually lost touch. I ran into a relative of hers not long ago and asked for her new address. Here is part of her letter:

“…I’m jealous. I had dreamed of the All-American family and a family photo like yours with children who had married happily. Who didn’t have children until after marriage. Who married good strong Christians and who were themselves good strong Christians…”

It went downhill from there. Aside from being very sad for the things that she shared so honestly, I had this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I thought, “That could have been me.” Me and my left-brained, linear thinking, not a creative bone in his body, engineer, sweetheart of a husband.

While unpacking boxes of books recently, I ran across our copy of Harley’s book, His Needs, Her Needs (or as I like to refer to it, His Needs His Needs! Basically, men have just one need and guess what it is?) Well, the author suggests that the couple should read the same copy and highlight things she thinks are important in pink, and he should do the same with a blue one. Then you get together and discuss the common topics that are in purple.

I remember being in trouble from the Table of Contents, because Drew didn’t see the genius in my buying a package of highlighters from Sam’s, since surely we already had those around the house. Never mind that he was right. I just couldn’t find them. I don’t remember the exact conversation, but I imagine it went into a critique of my organizational skills and then I probably pouted. I’m positively sure I pouted.

Drew and I are very thankful and humbled to be together after 25 years. To be honest, it’s not because we have prayed and read the Bible together every day, because we haven’t. It’s not because we had a date night every week and celebrated our anniversaries away from the children every year, because we didn’t. And without judging our friends who have gone through the pain and agony of a divorce, it’s not because we always gave it our very best effort because often, we just wouldn’t.

This may sound lame, but it’s true. We kept showing up. For each other, for our kids and for church. I know, we’re the church, but you know what I mean. We taught in our kids classes and found other ways to serve together. We were constantly connected to a small group and shared our hearts with peers and with those who were further down the road than we were.

Maybe my friend did, too and it just didn’t work out. But in our case, it’s amazing to realize how faithful God has been to us with the little we have given Him to work with. Sometimes love was just a decision on our part. And God’s unfailing love has had everything in the world to do with it.