There was a comment on Facebook under a post of our wedding picture, from last year that 49 years of marriage is quite an accomplishment. I suppose it is. The comment was that we should write down our secret to our successful relationship. Christine, my oldest daughter said that her parents would most likely have different responses. She asked what I would say. I think I will say this:

Today, October 7th Diane and I are having a wedding anniversary. It is our 50th. That's a really big number. We met when we were both 17 years old. That means we have been friends for over 51 years. I find that to be quite special. I still look at her, sitting on the couch watching the birds outside our coach window, or reading a book, or I hear her softly breathing next to me at night, and I am still amazed that she choose to spend her life with me. I am also amazed at how our lifetime started out together, but that is another story for this story site, which you can find here, but this does lead me to my devotional message today.

When Diane and I decided to get married in August 1972 we were in Norfolk, Virginia. I would shortly be hired by WKBC radio in North Wilkesboro, NC as an announcer and computer tech. We had two months to plan a wedding, most of which would be done by phone, but we wanted to pick out our rings before I left town, leaving Diane home to keep working at her job. The rings were wide gold bands, rather plain with the wedding cross engraved on the outside, you know, the two circles with the cross connecting them. We also had something engraved on the inside:

2 + 1 = 1

Two souls, plus God, equals one person. That is the way we believed our life together, our marriage, would work. The only way it would work. We have dedicated ourselves to continuing to live that way. We started out that way. On our wedding night we sat down together and we each read a verse of scripture to the other, almost like a private promise, a second vow, so to speak. We each had two months to think about this moment.

Diane's verse was this one:

Ruth 1: 16-17

Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me."

I read this to her:

Proverbs 5: 15-19

Drink water from your own cistern,
running water from your own well.
Should your springs overflow in the streets,
your streams of water in the public squares?
Let them be yours alone,
never to be shared with strangers.
May your fountain be blessed,
and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
A loving doe, a graceful deer—
may her breasts satisfy you always,
and may you ever be intoxicated with her love.

The first book, the first two chapters actually, of Genesis tells us about all the things God created. First, it was light, and it was good, then it was dry land, and God said it was good. He created the sun and the moon, and that too was good. Then he made the birds of the air, the animals that lived on land, along with fruits, trees, and vegetables. He saw they were all good. When God made man, however, out of the dust of the earth, He said this is not good. He said this is not good, not because he made a mistake, after all, he made man in his own Image. No, it was not good because the man was all alone. So he took a rib from Adam and made a woman and when Adam awoke and saw her walking thru the garden I suspect he said, Woo-Man! So the first marriage was between Adam and Eve, and thus began one of the most sacred of all things that God has ever made. Marriage has to be protected and the writer of Proverbs knew that and passed that knowledge along with some very stern instructions to his son. He instructed him to protect marriage and don't stray from what it is for, and don't cheat! If you do then words like immoral, bitter, hell, scorn, unstable, hate, despised, and ruin, those unhappy words become part of the results. I told my kids, that a moment’s pleasure, can lead to a lifetime of pain, so run from it.

The world has devilishly influenced people who are trying to destroy the marriage between a man and a woman because it ultimately destroys the relationship between God and humanity. That will not happen in this house.

Proverbs 5: 1-14

5 My son, pay attention to my wisdom,

turn your ear to my words of insight,

2 that you may maintain discretion

and your lips may preserve knowledge.

3 For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey,

and her speech is smoother than oil;

4 but in the end she is bitter as gall,

sharp as a double-edged sword.

5 Her feet go down to death;

her steps lead straight to the grave.

6 She gives no thought to the way of life;

her paths wander aimlessly, but she does not know it.

7 Now then, my sons, listen to me;

do not turn aside from what I say.

8 Keep to a path far from her,

do not go near the door of her house,

9 lest you lose your honor to others

and your dignity to one who is cruel,

10 lest strangers feast on your wealth

and your toil enriches the house of another.

11 At the end of your life you will groan,

when your flesh and body are spent.

12 You will say, “How I hated discipline!

How my heart spurned correction!

13 I would not obey my teachers

or turn my ear to my instructors.

14 And I was soon in serious trouble

in the assembly of God’s people.”