Cutting back all the confusing extras, Valentine’s Day is about marriage; and marriage is about a man and a woman becoming, in the sight of God, one flesh. And one spirit, too.
Patty and I will celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary this summer. That means we’ve been married long enough for me to learn and understand what marriage is.
The thing is, that if you do it right, your marriage grows. It grows deeper. It’s not only that occasionally the same words come out of your mouths at the same time, which always delights us when it happens. It also means that we can and do trust each other–with anything and everything, at all times. This encourages us to think we’re doing marriage right.
I sometimes call my wife “Scotty,” a Star Trek allusion to James Doohan in the engine room who keeps the starship Enterprise fully functional so that Captain Kirk can fight the Klingons. No Scotty, no starship. Sometimes the ship encounters real difficulties, and Scotty has to untangle some very complicated knots.
But I often think of her, too, as the wife described in Proverbs Chapter 31, who does, like, everything–and I do mean everything. I literally could not be writing this, but for my wife’s diligence and wise management of our household.
We have a lot on our plate, just now. Today, for instance, it’s Aunt Joan’s extremely complicated finances. You could tear your hair out by the roots. But we go on, our work continues, because God has blessed us by uniting us in marriage. We are a team. We are two in one. We do together what neither of us could possibly do alone.
Later I’ll tell you about the nice gift Patty gave me for Valentine’s Day; but just now, duty calls again and we have to run off to the bank.
But I’ll tell you this: forty years is no way long enough.
Sometimes it seems that people have forgotten about love, which is truly a terrible shame.
Congrats on 40 and may you have many, many more years together.
The only people who have forgotten about love are those who have allowed themselves to be over-acculturated by the Whoopee Crowd. Happily, love is deeply wired into us by our Creator: and our sinfulness will not frustrate His design. He has already woven our faults into His pattern, and ensured that it will come out right.
One thing that astounds me is the change is music. When I was growing up, Top 40 songs tended to be about love. They sang about love, love lost, longing for long, hoping for love and even that love could be painful at times, but most of the songs were about love.
I don’t think that’s happening to the same degree, these days and the songs about relationships tend to be rather imbued with “attitude”.
“No Scotty, no Starship” – lol. Bless you both!
It’s a profound statement. Marriage is an arrangement of mutual love and support. We function much better when we are working in cooperation with someone else.
Two heads are better than one,which is a truism. Congratulations, Lee and Patty for being wise enough and blessed enough to reach this level of
love and marriage. May the Lord make His face shine on you.