Today is our wedding anniversary.
I didn't choose to get married on Valentines day because I'm a hopeless romantic. It was the practical consideration that my Husband would never have any excuse remembering our anniversary. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
We often make the observation "I married my best friend."
"Can I marry my best friend?" asks Little Mister (aged 5).
"You need to be grown up first" I reply. Where did my little baby go?
"And then you need to ask her Father," adds Husband, with a meaningful look at Young Lady and Miss Boo.
Back Then, we were Best Friends, and we were being very careful not to let any complicating romantic feelings spoil our friendship. It didn't matter that most of our friends assumed we were a couple, we knew better.
Until God and I had the following conversation: (It's okay, I wasn't hearing voices or anything. Just an internal dialogue that occurred while I was praying, represented as an external dialogue for literary convenience).
God: You're going to marry this man.
Me: Are you sure God? That's a bit of a turnaround. Can you give me some kind of sign to confirm this?
God: Sure I can. I've told him the same thing.
Me: Ummmm.
Which led a few days later to:
Him: So how was your prayer time the other day? Did God say anything to you?
Me (blushing): Yeees... but what did God say to you first?
It was two years later that we married.
17 years after that and we're still Best Friends too.
We're team-mates, we have each other's back. When rough times hit (and there have been a few of those over the years) we support each other: it's the two of us against the circumstances.
We tell our children, as they watch the video recording of our wedding and flip through the photo album, that friendship is actually the very best foundation for a marriage. Then we take out the prompt cards that we used for our vows, and repeat them again to one another as we have done every anniversary.
"I give myself to you to be your wife, and I take you to be my husband,
to love and cherish you, uphold and encourage you,
to provide and protect, honour and respect you,
through good times and bad times,
whether we are poor or rich, healthy or sick,
for as long as we both live."
Happy Anniversary my dearest. I love you.
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ReplyDeleteLovely, thank you!
ReplyDeleteYou both look so very young. :-) Friendship as the basis for love works wonderfully well. It's what DH and I did too, nearly 46 years ago now.
ReplyDelete