When you’ve been married for years and years

The water is as smooth as a mirror and the mountains are still wearing a bit of winter white. As I write this, I’m fishing with Dan on Lava Lake high in the Cascades. Well … more accurately, Dan’s fishing and I’ve got my laptop out.

Lava Lake with South Sister as backdrop

We’re camped here for the week with two other couples—longtime friends. The earlier part of the week, three of my teenaged grandsons were with us, along with Dan’s daughter, son-in-law, and two young grandkidlets.

All the kids and grands have gone home, which leaves three more days roughing it here in the wilds.

The best of both worlds. Crazy, fun, memory-making time with family … and time alone, together, at a slower pace. Walking to the camp store for ice cream. Reading in the shade. Swapping stories with friends around shared meals.

The secret

This week on the lake and around the campfire, I’ve been reflecting on how Dan and I met and married—a miraculous, seemingly random turn of events: if this one little thing hadn’t happened, then this other big thing wouldn’t have happened.

I asked him what he thought was the secret to our marriage. “We get along. You try to make me happy, and I try to make you happy,” he answered. “We communicate pretty well. That’s the key. Especially if you have issues.”

And then he paused. “But we have no issues. We should have issues so we could talk about that sort of stuff.”

Another pause. “Maybe we should go to marriage counseling because we don’t have any issues.”

He makes me smile. A lot.

I think part of the reason for our wedded bliss has to do with liking each other. We enjoy spending time together.

The hard part would be when one spouse chooses to stay loving and kind while the other doesn’t seem to care about growing and sustaining the marriage.  

God addresses that very thing in His Word:

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins

1 Peter 4:8

Earnestly. The original Greek is ektene and can be translated, “earnestly, deeply, fervently, intensely, eagerly.” Those are strong words for how we should love one another.

In her book, Waymaker, Ann Voskamp wrote:

Falling in love is only the wild rush before the soft landing in a deep canyon of companionship … The fall into love is an exhilarating part of it all, but it’s the staying loving that makes a love story.

Ann Voskamp

When Dan and I arrived at our two-year anniversary, I posted, “Now we can say we’ve been married for years.” A cousin responded, “When you hit four years, you can say you’ve been married for years and years!”

As of today, Dan and I have officially been married for “years and years.” We’ve landed softly in a deep canyon of companionship. And we plan to stay loving, even though we may need marriage counseling because we have no issues.