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.