A Wonderful Celebration

Yesterday we celebrated my parents' sixtieth wedding anniversary. It was a very special event, an event that is becoming increasingly rare within our society, a precious example of commitment and faithfulness, of promises made and kept sacred. We, the six children, were all there, gathered together to affirm something about our parents--their love for each other, their example to us, and the teachings they instilled in each of us. Marriage is for keeps. It's not about whether a person perfectly meets your every need. It's about promises. It's about real love. Love that endures through bliss and pain...through daily drudgery as well as through excitement and joy.    Marriage is about families, accepting each other's family and becoming responsible for them as well, about children and the years and years of loving them and sacrificing for them. It's about encouraging each other in gifts and callings, in faith and good works, about learning to read each other so well you speak sometimes without saying a word. It's about an intimate friendship.

 


Here's three brothers and three sisters-in-law, remembering
events from three weddings over half a century ago.

Aunts and cousins, so many people who now look like their mothers and fathers did only yesterday, I think.

And pictures of grandchildren and great-grandchildren; inevitably,  someone's eyes are closed.

My brother and his wife, a love story unique and worth the telling. Someday, I'll try.

Fancy tables with flowers and lights and cake.






Friends from church and from past ministry,

Family pictures, once again.

Mom, Dad, this was a wonderful day!

We, your children, would like to say that, though by some people's standards we may have been considered deprived as we all grew up together, we were never poor. You gave us all you had, showed us right paths, taught us wisdom and truth. You introduced us to the One who lives beyond age, beyond death and who gives eternal life.
 We never felt unloved.