30 Years of Matrimony
June 17, 2008
By John W. Kennedy
June 17 marks three decades of
wedded bliss for my wife, Patty, and me. Of course, it all hasn’t been bliss.
It’s been sickness and health, richer and poorer, better and worse. Marriages
that survive must endure many heartaches and unexpected turns.
As I reminisce about that muggy
day in a rural Iowa church 30 years ago, I’m reminded how uncertain life is. I
didn’t know that my sister Margaret would die the following year. Or that Jim,
my best friend growing up and one of my groomsmen, would die in a head-on car
crash a few years later.
I didn’t know that Patty and I
would be blessed with three sons before her hysterectomy at 32. Or that I would
be fired from my first newspaper job because I helped form a local pro-life
group. We learned Philippians 4:19 firsthand as God supplied all our needs
during four months of unemployment.
Certainly, as someone who grew
up in a small town in Iowa, I didn’t foresee ever living in Sacramento and
later the Chicago suburbs to pursue my career. How could I have predicted that
I would move to Springfield, Mo., working within blocks of where my parents
grew up in the 1920s?
As I recited those vows so long
ago I didn’t understand that my wife would endure a five-year debilitating
illness that threatened the viability of our marriage. Or that she would emerge
from that awful period with her health miraculously restored. During that
difficult, confusing interim, she often quoted Oswald Chambers: “If through a
broken heart God can bring His purposes to pass in the world, then thank Him
for breaking your heart.”
Sadly, I look back over all the
friends we’ve known in churches over the years and count as many broken marriages
as intact ones. For one reason or another, many couples decided to call it
quits along the way. Often, it was the decision of just one partner.
Through all the surprises and
disappointments, one fact is clear: God is in control. Without Him it’s impossible
to meet the uncertain challenges that face us beyond 30 years.
— John W. Kennedy is news
editor of Today’s Pentecostal Evangel and blogs at Midlife Musings
(jkennedy.agblogger.org).
