By: Mike Kelly
Retired Pastor
What kind of husband would I be if I didn’t acknowledge that today, Feb 4, is our 59th wedding anniversary? Thank you, Donna, for all your patience, forgiveness, understanding and love.
We met when we were 16. We were on a double date. She was my best friend’s date! Yep, I married my best friend’s girlfriend. Relax. I didn’t steal her. He gave his blessing and was even a groomsman in our wedding party.
Talk about a mistake! Not mine, his. He really blew that one. He had a precious jewel and didn’t recognize the value of the woman he was dating. I, on the other hand, (bragging here in case you get confused), knew her worth.
Our story parallels a parable of Jesus’ pretty closely. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” Luke 13:45-46.
No, it didn’t cost me everything I had. Ok, it sort of did. 4 weeks to the day of our wedding, a kitchen grease fire burned down the apartment we were living in, and we lost everything! And I do mean everything!
A few pots and pans were recoverable, but nothing else. Not our clothes, our wedding gifts, our few possessions, everything! Not that I’m still upset about that! Nope. Not at all!
Married 59 years and dating 4 years before that, might give me the platform to speak on how to have a successful marriage. And, by successful, I don’t mean the length of years but the health of the relationship.
I’ve met many who were together a lot of years, but it was more a prison sentence than a successful marriage. I once talked to a woman whom I didn’t know but had just lost her husband of over 50 years, and I’d been asked to do the funeral.
I knelt beside her and told her how sorry I was about her loss. She looked at me and said, “I’m so glad that ^(*&*@! is dead.” WOW. Yep, that was not a successful marriage!
So, what’s our secret? Taking all the real reasons out of it, I can somewhat flippantly but truthfully say that “I know without a doubt that I got the best end of the deal.”
When those seasons came that it felt like I needed out, it didn’t take a high IQ to know that no one else would have me, and no one else would treat me as well or love me as much. I’m not much of a “catch”. I already had the best, so what sense was there in trading in “the best” for “less than the best”?
But allow me to return to the serious question. I think “successful marriage” is defined as a marriage where you are both enriched by the relationship…emotionally, spiritually and physically. If we feed off and consume one another, we become less than when we first were. But if we lift one another up, we increase both our values.
We were both broken when we married. That’s true of everyone who marries…and everyone who doesn’t. We are all broken. Some are worse than others. My wife grew up in a sterile and unloving home.
She wasn’t abused, but she wasn’t wanted either. I grew up in a loving home, but my dad died when I was young, leaving a big hole in my understanding of what a man should be. And, my grandfather, who tried to fill in, taught me that a man is to be emotionless whose only job is to provide.
Think the John Wayne style of manhood. He and my grandmother had one of those long (71 yrs) prison sentences I was talking about.
I’ll talk more about what a successful marriage entails next week.
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Mike Kelly is the founding pastor of Bryan’s Grace Community Church (retired) and Board Chairman of Bryan’s Sanctuary Homeless Shelter and Williams County’s Compassion (free) Medical Clinic.