On a Personal Note


The fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom,
    and humility comes before honor.
Proverbs 15:33 ESV

If Solomon had been married as long as we have, he might have added the footnote that, “Lots of humility along with ‘I’m sorry and please forgive me’ comes before making it to your 50th wedding anniversary.” Probably somewhere about wife number four hundred Solomon lost track of anniversaries so I won’t press him on why that was left out. So as you might have guessed this Friday will mark 50 years since my very special, forgiving and patient wife and I took our first steps down the aisle together.

Yeah, she still can’t believe I loved those ridiculous platform shoes, but she was smiling anyway! Rather than the traditional cruise, we decided on a cross-country road trip to visit family and a few friends, would be a lot more fun. I may or may not be posting now and then along the way, along with a few photos.

So what can I tell you that we have learned along the way?

A real marriage is real work through real problems – but with God’s help and grace we discovered that real love isn’t something we fall into, it is something to learn step by step.

“What can I do to help?” works better than sitting in the car, honking the horn while she is getting the kids ready for church!

You’ll never remember what the heck was in the news you were watching or reading ten years from now, but you’ll remember every shot that went through the net while playing basketball with your kids!

Baby sitting your grandchildren often show us some of the things we missed while rushing around trying to be a good mom and dad.

Praying together every night before we head to bed, helps two people to sleep better and be prepared for unexpected changes, challenges or disappointments that come in the morning.

Jesus really never leaves us and walking with Him makes walking with each other possible all these years!

PS I hope you like this practically ancient song that was popular back in our day by Paul Stookey of the Group Peter Paul and Mary.

14 thoughts on “On a Personal Note

  1. Pastor Pete, you shared great wisdom from your current vantage point. It’s a joy for me to say, “Congratulations!” to those who hit major milestones like yours. I pray the LORD makes his face shine on you and be gracious to you as you celebrate 50 years of unity.

    • Thank you! It is hard to imagine that so many years have passed. Some days we feel like the good old days, others we just feel older. But in both we are grateful for God’s amazing grace.

    • Thank you Dave. It has been a journey with lots of hill and valleys. Personally I went from knowing most of the answers, to wondering how ridiculous I must have sounded. God has been faithful and we have learned to be more gracious, gentle and forgiving.

  2. Congratulations, Pastor Pete, on your 50th anniversary. It takes much forgiving and stamina to reach this milestone! May you having many more years, together! Great song that I haven’t heard for many years!

Leave a Reply

Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s