Love and Romance

After my post about the book The Inheritance I started thinking about the idea of romance. Whenever I hear the word “romance,” my mind jumps to two images. The first is of a couple at our church that are old enough to have all their children out of the house. One Sunday I watched them walk back to their car holding hands. Watching them made me want that type of marriage, a marriage that doesn’t become boring after a couple of years. They have held hands during both the happiest and heart-breaking days of their lives together. To me, holding hands today, represents all the other times they have needed to hold each other's hands for support. No other person on the planet can appreciate what they have gone through, except each other. When I imagine the romance of marriage, that is what I think of, holding hands. It seems to symbolizes where strength and comfort are found.

Another image that is burned in my mind happened this past summer at a wedding my family attended. One of the groomsmen and bridesmaids were married to each other and had five children under the age of eight. One might think that with that many children and trying to get them ready for a wedding the parents would be tired and frustrated. But I will never forget the look on the husband’s face as his wife walked down the aisle. His beaming face showed that he was head over heels in love with this woman, both as a friend and lover.

He truly looked more in love than the groom did watching his bride walk down the aisle. It was not because the groom didn’t love the bride, because he did immensely. Yet, he didn’t have the same knowledge and understanding that the couple who had been married 10+ years had. Raising five children and educating them at home brought the couple closer together, because they had had to work through many more things than the couple getting married. Instead of letting differences drive them apart they used them to draw them closer to God and then each other. As she walked down the aisle I imagine he thought of their own wedding day, and how much more he loved her today, and how much more he would love her in ten more years.

I pray that, Lord willing, when I have been married 30 years my beloved will still look at me the way he did on our wedding day, but with even more love in his eyes and thankfulness to God for all that He has done in our lives and will continue to do till death do us part.