Hard to believe…today Steve and I celebrate our 36th wedding Anniversary. I thank God for Steve’s love, faithfulness, and long-standing commitment to me and to our family. Love you babe! 

Always smooth sailing? Hardly. We’ve had our share of turbulent wind and waves, dead-boring calm and serene times too. When we both said “I do,” before God and witnesses, we committed to sticking together in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer. God didn’t promise years of perfection or no troubles. In fact, given the vows repeated, you’d expect adversity and pain.

What’s our secret to success? Flexibility, compromise, faith, and commitment. The best laid plans of men don’t always work out. I may have an idea or plan in my head, but that doesn’t mean my husband will embrace the same idea. Time has a way of helping solve disagreements. If the two of us don’t agree on a certain topic, sleeping on it (if the decision can wait) lends different perspective to the topic.

Give-and-take remains key in a relationship. I can’t always be right and neither can he. Respect the other person for their individual God-given talents and knowledge. I heard a quote once: “If both of us had identical qualities, one of us wouldn’t be needed!”  If more time is needed, agree to disagree. It’s never a good idea to go to bed angry though, “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry” (Ephesians 4:26).

Commitment: to bind by pledge or assurance, promise, obligation, dedication, devotion, steadfastness. Those can be frightening words…maybe that’s why many chose to avoid making a commitment. After all, it’s much easier and less threatening to stick with someone when the tide is favorable and the way smooth.

Perhaps the most important is faith. Faith in someone bigger and wiser than myself. I chose to place my faith in God: healer, Savior, and unconditional lover of my soul. As much as I love my husband, he cannot satisfy every longing of my soul. Steve is only human—just like me—full of selfishness, pride, and sin. When I place my trust in the unchangeable God, great things happen. Like being married 36 years today to my high school sweetheart! 

Teresa Kay Lasher ©2011

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