As I’m sure you are aware, this week’s devotional is arriving later in the week than usual. The reason; my wife and I were out of town celebrating our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. We grew up in the church together, received the Holy Ghost on the same night, and were childhood sweethearts in the fifth grade, and on January 18, 1985 we became Mr. and Mrs. Michael Dodd.
On that day our lives changed forever. We ceased being two individuals. As a church full of witnesses looked on, we stood before the minister and made a solemn promise, a vow, to love one another in sickness and in health, in poverty and prosperity, in good times and in bad, to live and strive in life together as one. Afterwards came the commitment.
The commitment to love is what has kept us together for these twenty-five years since we made those vows. Through the grace of God, we have put each other’s desires before our own wishes, we have acted in one another’s best interests, at times when we really did not feel like it. We have suffered long with each other and overlooked each other’s habits that at times drove us to distraction. That in turn has allowed us to celebrate some of the greatest moments of our life together, moments that we will cherish as long as we live.
I don’t know that I understand all the things that go into making a marriage successful and insuring that it will last a lifetime, others are well ahead of us and have already celebrated fifty years or more of marriage. But one thing I know for sure is that you have to be committed to loving each other. I am so grateful to my wife for loving me during those times when I did not do anything that generated feelings of love. She has forgiven me for hurts that others would have never let me forget. That is true love, and I truly thankful to the Lord first for bringing us together, and to her for her commitment to love.
God Bless and Have a Great Week!