Do you remember what you were doing on June 22, 1972? Not really you say. Well until a few months ago, neither did I. So what happened to “jog” my memory? It was a few months ago when my wife and I were cleaning out the garage and came across our high school senior yearbooks that had been boxed away for safe keeping. As I started paging through the book, I found my wife’s senior picture.
Beside her picture were the typically embarrassing statements for each person’s bio. So I read her statement for the “Best Thing to Remember” for that year – “June 22, 1972 was the best day of my life” the caption read. That was when the memory came flooding back into my brain. The “Aha Moment” had arrived. The underlying reason was because that was the day she said “Yes” when I asked her to marry me. When I read the caption aloud to her, she confirmed it.
Now ladies, don’t bad mouth me yet about my faulty memory. I distinctly remember the events of that day, where we were, and how excited we both were about wanting to get married, etc. I even remember it being in the summer of that year. But until I read that statement in my wife’s high school senior yearbook, I did not recall the exact date. On the flip side, it’s the date my wife will never forget. Wives always remember stuff like this, to the chagrin of we husbands, but that’s okay.
We were high school sweethearts and madly in love. On a scale of 1 – 10, I suppose we registered about a 15 on that day. I had just picked up our wedding rings set and engagement ring earlier that day and couldn’t wait to make it an official engagement. It wasn’t a big, highly orchestrated event like so many young people do it nowadays. We (she) didn’t care that we were in my 1966 Chevy BelAir in front of a Pizza Hut. I just wanted to “pop the question” and come to find out, she couldn’t wait for me to ask her so she could answer affirmatively. I was ever so happy that she did too!!
Looking back those 49 years, it made me stop and ponder, what was I offering to the love of my life when I posed the ultimate question, “Will you marry me?” Did I know what would lie ahead for us, all of the topsy-turvy, rollercoaster ride of events, experiences, and emotions we would encounter that would impact us? Nope, not one bit.
If we had known all that we would experience over the next 49 years, would I have asked her, but more importantly, would she have said, “Yes” to my proposal? That was one of those times when I’m glad we cannot see that far into the future. It is by faith that both man and woman join together in love to become one and take on the world.
As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” You don’t know where that staircase is leading you, but you’ll be together experiencing every moment. You trust one another to support, protect, provide, comfort, and love each other forever. That’s the real “promise” for both. Both have inclinations that it won’t be easy, challenges and struggles will occur, but they join hands, hearts, minds, and souls to take the journey together. They each have faith in the other, combined with the love that they share, to work together in overcoming life’s challenges and sharing in the victories.
I believe when two people are blessed with love for each other and decide to marry; they bring together a unique mixture of love and faith in one another that can withstand the many storms and tribulations of life. As Jesus said in Matthew 19:5 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” Two separate, and distinctly different people will join together in matrimony to become one, inseparable entity.
Going forward, they will have to rely on each other and God to see them through all of life’s challenges and triumphs. Two are stronger than one, for if one falls down, the other one is there to help them get up. If one gets cold, the other person can warm them. If one is hurting, the other one can comfort them. Three strands to make a rope are much stronger than two. Therefore, when you braid together the life of a husband, a wife, and God, these ties of life are the strongest of all. We just have to trust in God who will always be there for us too.
For all of the husbands and wives out there, I pray that your lives will continue to be braided with God to keep your love and faith the strongest it can possibly be.
Love to all.
Live, Learn, and Grow in Jesus.
Blessings,
Jerry
