Valentine’s Day
As Karen and I approach our fiftieth wedding anniversary, I understand better each day that I am and have been a very lucky man.
I will be the first to say that being married to me is no easy task, yet my dear wife has been unwavering through thick and thin, my confidante, my cheerleader, my steady friend. I got pretty lucky back in the summer of 1972.
Long term partnerships are the true test of character. Hopefully we’re long past the day when we fuss about formalities or gender. The fact that one soul is prepared to care for another for the long haul is good enough for me.
In his lovely, gently poetic paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13, J.B. Phillips puts it this way: “This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience—it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.
Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.
Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.”
Those of us who are blessed to receive love like that must be truly grateful, and do our best to give it back in kind.
A happy Valentine’s Day to all. And especially to Karen.