Still Crazy After All These Years

Today my wife and I celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary.

Birthdays and anniversaries are good times to celebrate what it based on what was in the hope for what will be.  Something recently made me think of the significance of the day.  I had the privilege of having three good men accept becoming my groomsmen for the day.  (No I didn’t pay them … which I’m sure is something they’re chasing me for.)  Two of those groomsmen went onto get married and invited me to their wedding and its among the saddest things I recall that I was unable to be there for them as they were for me.  So recently I got an invite to the third groomsmen’s wedding scheduled to take place later this year.  I hope I can make that one.

Yet beyond that what the invitation meant to me was the great honour being invited to a wedding is.  As my beloved wife and not so beloved bank balance told me for some time afterwards, weddings are big deals.  For a man and a woman to choose to spend the rest of their lives together in something that God has ordained as special and precious is awesome in itself.  To witness them make a public declaration of that intention has got to be up there with there as the best things to attend.

Much has happened in the 9 intervening years since that ceremony took place.  I’ve lost contact with quite a lot of the people I personally invited and saw at that wedding and at the same time I’ve made lifelong close and deep friendships.  These friendships have been crucial to the marriage, because good friends help you in the ongoing challenge of being a good man, good husband and a good Dad as well as a good friend.

Yet literally at the end of the day the friends are not there, the children are in their bed and there are two people that remain in their own room in their own bed, next to each other.  By the grace of God, Authrine has chosen to remain in that bed and stick with me for all the ups and downs we’ve been through together.  Such is the class of the woman’s character.

Recollecting this amazing act of grace on God’s part, I’m reminded of an incident that took place a short time before the wedding.  Authrine and I were at a concert, I was involved in singing with a choir and Authrine was there as a guest.  Whilst I did my impression of singing (for which the police have yet to collect evidence of the alleged noise pollution), Authrine and a friend of hers sat taking it all in and trying not to make their ears bleed at my efforts.

Behind them two women were chatting and gossiping and among the topics they talked about was me.  As they looked at me doing my thing in the choir, one mentioned to the other some rather derogatory remarks about me and queried who on earth in their right mind would want to marry the likes of me.  They did this without knowing that in front of them was the person located on earth who in her right mind had decided to marry the likes of me.

She heard their chatter and at the end of the concert turned to face the two women and struck up a friendly conversation with them and ended it by politely pointing out she was indeed the earthling who in her right mind had decided to marry the likes of me.

You can imagine how awkward that must have been for the two women.

9 years on and there are some onlookers who are still querying Authrine’s sanity, but thank God she’s still crazy after all these years!  Long may it continue.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd