Twenty-three Years

Coming up in ten days, (August 27th) my bride and I will celebrate our 23rd wedding anniversary. It seems like it was such a long time ago that we started this journey, and as with all journeys you rarely ever know where you will end up when you get started, but finding out is half the fun.

Our journey started where I feel all of them should start, and that is in the local church. When I met Cheryl, I had been born again for about a year. She on the other hand was a Christian all of her life. We could not have come from any more different backgrounds. She was a self-sufficient, able to handle herself girl and I was a boy who had no clue about anything. The one thing I did know, was that God had placed her in my life, and I was so very thankful to Him for doing that. She took my breath away the day that I met her, and she has been doing that ever since. (Something that at times makes my children gag.)

As the years have passed, we have certainly been through good times and bad. We have not been immune to the challenges of life, truthfully, no one makes it through life without some scars to show for it. The thing that makes the difference I think, is the willingness to face those times together, head on and to stay with each in the midst of it. A lot of times when things get rough in a marriage, instead of couples binding together and facing them head on, they end up attacking one another instead.

Life is like a sailing ship on the ocean. The husband and wife are both

very important to the ship in order to get where they need to go, but when a storm arises and the ship gets tossed, instead of facing the storm head on, and battling through it together, they end up yelling at one another, each blaming the other for the problem. They are so busy placing blame that a lot of the time, the storm defeats them, not because the storm was necessarily so bad, but because of their unwillingness to face the challenge together.

My bride and I have had the opportunity to lash out at one another in the past twenty-three years, of course. But what we've chosen to do instead is to stay unified even if we didn't always agree with one another. Remember, Scripture states that we are co-heirs together (1 Peter 3:7) and men, if we want our prayers answered, then we have to treat our brides as an equal partner, and not a servant.

Cheryl and I attended our niece Cassidy's wedding this summer, and while we were there I reflected on the day that Cheryl and I got married, and what a journey it has been. Who would have ever thought all those many years ago that I would be where I am today, because of meeting and marrying this beautiful lady? I know that God has had a lot to do with that, but I also realize that Scripture also states, "The man who finds a wife finds a treasure, and he receives favor from the Lord."

Well, I can honestly say that I have found a treasure in my bride, she constantly amazes me with the way that she carries herself in her daily walk with the Lord and in the challenges that life throws at us. She is truly amazing to me, and has made me a much better man, who realizes that any favor that I have from the Lord is due to her being my wife. Happy Anniversary baby, you're the greatest!