25th Anniversary

So today is my wedding anniversary and it feels like any other day. I am not sure what I thought it would feel like. After all, a birthday is not different than the day before or the day after. This means that since later this month I also turn 50 yrs. old I will be married to Roger for half of my life. 

Half of my life?  So I ponder, which is the better half?  I hear it said, go ask my better half. Well he is not the better half of me nor I of him but in the bigger scheme of things I would like to think that I am embarking on the better half of my life.  Why will it be better?

In the beginning, when God created this union, we were young and lacking much of the fruit of the spirit that we have both come to improve upon. Sure we were head over heels  in love, however,  that began two year prior to being married. Roger and I both had been married before and each of us had one child.  I had the baby fever so the two years of daily love and life became a marriage commitment in oder to justify our baby.  If we make a choice to have a child then we certainly had better get married. We had to make a firm commitment to a family as well.  Still, I was not patient in those days like I am now. Perhaps patience comes from the day to day living and the fact that no matter what happens that you think you cannot endure is not as important to the rest of the world as it seems to you today because tomorrow kept on coming. One day after another of getting us to the little stuff and living through the big stuff.  I find that as those days passed and the world did not implode that I gradually developed patience.

I have heard it said that Love Is Patient and I believe I understand that today. Roger and I use to argue our points firmly and sometimes loudly to no end. Somewhere along the line we just stopped. Yesterday, he and I had a very brief argument over a financial matter, of course, but that is the first time in several years that we have taken the time out of our precious lives together to argue about anything.  Within our years together we have carved out our own little niche, one in which we find peace, acceptance, understanding, cooperation, respect, and just a down right comfy feeling each day.

Could we both improve little habits in our lives?  Well, he sure could but if I shared that with you then you would wonder why I still put up with his habits.  I on the other hand am flawless.  After 25 years together the truth of the matter is that none of my bad habits or his bad habits are significant enough to come between the tremendous deep feeling of joy that we bring to each other. I understand him in a way that nobody else can and he understands me. God has blessed us by developing within us individually and as one whole the living example of the fruit of the spirit.

So after 25 years we are indeed one whole created by God and a tree growing His fruits in our lives. His fruits in our lives will then also grow in our family's lives. You see, we are faithful not only to God but to each other. We are patient to each other and ourselves and certainly demonstrate self-control. We find peace and joy in each other which grows in us as one whole. We are certainly gentle and kind to each other and to the single whole that God has joined as well as finding meekness in this union as we are not tempted and do not find fault in each other. Then there is LOVE.  It is ever growing in us.  Not the kind of love that we felt our first few days together but the kind that is a slow blooming flowering plant with deep roots into a firm soil. 

So the better half of my marriage is upon us because we have grown to truly be one whole as God intended us to be. He has given us the tools to make it better in this half of our whole by the gradual growth and development of His fruits of the Spirit  within this thing we call marriage.

Neither Roger or I expected this much from that simple act of wanting another child, but that is where this all first began.  The honesty is that is neither of use really cared if we were married or not but we knew that it was best to get married if we wanted to raise a family.  The surprise is that we had no idea how emmense this connection woule become. So one day, 25 years ago, I wore white (my white nurses uniform as I had just gotten off of work at seven a.m.) and we went at the court house. We did not take a single person with us and so two strangers in the room witnessed our mariage in front of an Associate Judge. He was a pleasnt man and desired to be a full judge so he signed his name backwards on the paper so as to write the word "associate" last. Sure that does not make sense to you but at the time it was funny to Roger.

Knowing now, what I did not know then, I can only look forward to the ongoing next half of our married life and accept God's wisdom in the union He created.  Who could have ever imagined this complete and perfect whole that He has created?