Five Decades! Wow!

Yesterday marked fifty years of marriage for Ken and me. It’s hard to wrap my mind around that fact, but it’s true.

We were so blessed to celebrate the occasion a little early last month with all our kids and grandkids on a family vacation in Divide, Colorado. There were 23 of us in all and it was a wonderful time of hiking, swimming, mini-golf, board games, and s’mores around a nightly campfire. It was truly a week to remember.

Ken jokes that we’ve been married for 48 incredible years—and a couple of doozies! Thankfully those “doozies” didn’t happen all at once, but instead, a hard week here, a difficult day there. Marriage is hard work! Mostly though, it’s been glorious, and I would marry this amazing man all over again in a heartbeat. (And I kind of did just that since Ken surprised me with a vow renewal ceremony while we were in Colorado.)

Our kids put together a sweet slide show of our lives together, and gave us a jar of scrolls with loving words from all the kids and grandkids. Something we’ll treasure for the rest of our lives. We loved telling our two oldest granddaughters our love story—and trying to express how important it is that they wait for the man God has in mind for them.

This final screen of the slide show from our kids made me cry. But they were tears of the best kind. Joy, pride, gratitude. I could not feel more blessed with the years God has allowed us and the family he’s given us to walk through life with. I’m grateful, too, for the legacy of long, faithful marriages in both of our families. There are several hundred years of till-death-do-us-part marriage represented in our parents and grandparents. One set of Ken’s grandparents celebrated their 82nd wedding anniversary before Grandpa’s death at almost 102. Pretty amazing. So I guess at 50 years, we’re just getting started!