May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. —Proverbs5:18 (NIV)
So what did you do this weekend, Dad?” Timothy asked me on the phone. (It’s always flattering when your twenty-year-old wants to know how you spent your weekend when it can hardly compare with the campus delights of his life.)
“Not much.” I paused, trying to remember. “Your mom and I celebrated our wedding anniversary.” “That’s great,” he said, a little breathless. He was walking to the campus cafeteria.
“How did you celebrate?”
“Went to Jim and Kate’s for dinner.”
“Was this your twenty-sixth?”
“Our twenty-seventh.”
“Wow,” he said. There was some clatter in the background. He was going through the cafeteria line. A brief pause as he said, “Yo” to a friend.
“That means you’ve passed the mark.”
“What mark?”
“You’ve spent more years married than apart.”
“Oh,” I said, roughly calculating. “That’s right.” Now it was my turn to say, “Wow. How did you remember that?”
“Will and I figured it out. We wondered what it would be like to be married for more years than not being married.”
“It feels pretty good,” I had to admit. Our twenty-seventh didn’t seem like something that called for much celebrating. I was wrong.
“Okay, Dad,” he said. “Gotta go.”
“I love you,” I said.
“Love you too,” he said.
Twenty-seven years ago, I would never have expected to have such a bright, perceptive son. But then I wouldn’t have expected half of the good things that have happened to me since. You say “I do,” put it in God’s hands, and the rest is a wonder.
