Since the day we said our vows, our goal has been to walk worthy of the Lord and to keep on walking until we see his face (Bernice Callaway).

Is that your goal as a married couple? It sure is ours. Since the day we committed our lives to Christ, it’s been our goal not to deny God anything. The richness He gives us in our everyday living can’t be described in mere human words. And the strength He gives us to serve and out serve each other… not to mention the joy, peace, and love is again, indescribable.

We continually pray that when others see us, they will see Christ in us and will want to know Him better—that we won’t distort the message of love Christ has for them through how we live our lives. We also pray we will always live fully committed to our God and to each other because of the vows we exchanged some 30+ years ago.

This week we’d like to share with you a true life testimony from the lives of two very ordinary people who have lived their married lives in extraordinary faithfulness to the covenantal commitment they made to each other many years ago. The following thoughts were put into words by Phil Calloway in an article that was featured in Marriage Partnership Magazine www.marriagepartnership.com several years ago.

Phil had asked his parents who had been married for 57 years (at that point) to give him 5 good reasons why they were still together. What his mom wrote out for him is simple, yet profound. Phil writes:

At the top of her note, Mom had written: Five Reasons We’re Still Together, by Victor and Bernice Callaway. It turns out my parents’ wisdom is just too good to keep to myself, so here’s a summary of their 57 years of marital experience.

1. EXAMPLE: When we were married, we hardly knew about divorce. I guess everyone at our wedding, including us, fully expected the knot to stay tied. We had watched their marriages. We had seen their faithfulness. We would stay faithful too. We realize you won’t have that advantage, Son. Some of your closest friends may pack it in. But no matter how dark the road gets, you will find bright examples of faithfulness. AND WHEN YOU CAN’T FIND EXAMPLES, YOU CAN STILL BE ONE.

2. COMMITMENT: Sometimes I felt like walking out on Dad. And a few times I did. Early in our marriage I occasionally took long walks to get away from him. But I always returned to his loving arms. We made a pledge before God that we would stay committed to each other for life.

3. DEVOTIONS: Through reading God’s Word and praying together almost every night, we learned what God planned and expected for our marriage. We memorized verses that encouraged us to be loving, kind and honest and to keep on forgiving. WE ASKED GOD FOR GUIDANCE AND HE PROVIDED IT. We prayed for children and embraced each one of them as gifts from God.

4. TOGETHERNESS: As a Christian family we stuck together, warts and all. Though we often failed, we’re learning to admit wrong and ask for forgiveness. We laughed lots. We cried lots. We talked lots. We worked together and we played together.

5. GOALS: Since the day we said our vows, our goal has been to walk worthy of the Lord and to keep on walking until we see his face. Sometimes we’ve fallen flat on our faces. But when that has happened, we’ve been given grace to get up and claim God’s promise: “My Presence will go with you, and I will give your rest” (Exodus 33:4).

Aging brings with it a whole new challenge. It’s no flat plateau; sometimes the hills seem steeper and the cliffs more precarious, but we’re learning to trust God for what’s ahead and to thank him for the abundant and undeserved mercies of the past.

Not long after I read my moms note, someone informed me that another of my wedding-day videotapes had become obsolete. (Phil videotapes wedding on weekends as a financially rewarding hobby.) I thought about my parents standing at the altar on a day when the temperature dipped to 45 below in Toronto.

They knew that 10 days later Dad would go back to war, leaving his tearful bride waving from a train station platform. So they joined hands and promised to be faithful. They had no idea that their first child would die in their arms or that they would spend their entire lives below the poverty line. But they vowed to comfort each other, no matter what came their way.

By today’s standards Mom and Dad didn’t have much. Just $75, a solitary wedding ring and a suitcase full of dreams. More than half a century later, they still don’t have much. But their dreams were never about good fortune. Instead they dreamed of children who would follow God—and they got five of them. They dreamed of years of faithfulness—and they got 57 of them. You can travel the world, but I’ll guarantee you one thing: you’ll never meet two wealthier people.

It’s our prayer that we’ll be able to pass onto our children a love story such as this married couple did. What a precious inheritance it would be. And we pray that you’ll also be able to live out a wonderful love story for all who are in your life to witness. As we’ve heard it said before, “It’s not how you start the race that’s as important as to how you finish it.”

Is there something you have in your relationship that’s separating you from living a “life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (as described in Ephesians chapter 5)? Is it distracting you from living Christ? Is it of more importance than living the love of Christ for the sake of His Kingdom work?

It’s our prayer that if the love story you’ve been living falls short of that which the Lord longs for you to demonstrate, you’ll take to heart and live out what we’re told in the Bible where it says,

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart” (Hebrews 12:1-3).

May Christ be honored through your marriage and ours!

Steve and Cindy Wright

 Print This Page (printer-friendly)