Celebrating 30 years together!

A Quote by Madeleine L'Engle

"Family....  We love, trust, get hurt, sometimes outraged, and we love and trust anyhow because that's the best way to let our love grow."

On July 4th of this calendar year my Beloved and I will be celebrating our 30th Anniversary.  What began as a dream come true for me...at one point 20 years later became a nightmare.  Then through much of what Madeleine's quote mentions, our love grew.  

By the Grace of God our marriage not only survived the terrible hurts and outrage of betrayal, but now thrives!  It thrives because we both fought to change ourselves and we both fought to find answers...and when we couldn't find or understand the answers we received, we learned how to forgive.  I didn't say we learned how to forget...but we did learn how to forgive.  The forgetting happens down the road when we least expect it.  That's the Gift God gives us,I believe, as a reward for hanging in there...for doing everything as a couple to make right our wrongs to one another.

Even though  the picture in this post is of a couple that was married twice as long as we've been; it makes me think of what our hands will look like in 30 more years.  The age worn and defining lines in their clasped hands speak silently of dedication, forgiveness, commitment, and undying love.  True love really does stand the test of time...

I had the honor of taking this photo on a day where I walked into a home of a couple where I delivered a traveling tea party.  I met Elouise at my Writers club, she being 83 at the time and one of the founding members of the club in the early 70's.  I've posted about this couple before a  few years back, Barney & Elouise.  Barney passed away 11 months after this photo was taken.  Framed, it sat at the funeral home and comforted everyone who walked by it.  It comforted Elouise the most, the Beloved wife left behind.

Not only is this year our 30th Wedding Anniversary - but last week was our 10th Anniversary of when my Beloved Husband returned home.  Where betrayal was revealed, and the real work of our marriage began.  The anniversary passed last week and I didn't even realize it.  That, in and of itself, is a miracle; as I thought I'd never ever forget the call from him that came in that day that said "we" were over.  He in New York at Ground Zero, and myself standing in our kitchen in NC.  What an amazing transformation God has done since that day.  

With my need back then being so fierce to find some type of blue print to know whether I'd ever feel safe again, trust again, or love him fully again...I had no assurance; no guarantee.  Quite frankly, I lived in fear for a very long time.  

I thought I was someone that had a deep faith in God.  The near demise of our marriage showed me how shallow my "trust" in God was.  I wrestled back and forth with faith versus trust...  To this day I know it was my deep faith in God that assured me that we'd make it.  But the "trust" part just seemed totally separate.  It confused me. I wrestled more...and I learned a blue print was never to be.  Walking one day at a time through our storm built my trust more, and increased my faith.  

Our day to day journey of recovery would bring us to this place we now reside in.  No, it's not a physical place.  It's more of a spiritual and emotional place where we have repaved a loving and trusting relationship that we built from the ashes of the first 20 years together.   Many people were used along the way to speak into our lives, into our hearts.  Pastors, counselors, caring friends, and authors of awesome books that taught us so much about fighting for our love and explained so much of what had happened to us along the way. I can now sigh a breath of relief...laugh, and trust again.  I, no..."We", can now say we made it to the other side of the mountain.  Not by our own strength, but from the Strength that we gained from our Heavenly Father.  

In a few months we'll take an early Anniversary vacation to a lovely cobble street town where we'll stroll down the streets hand in hand, just like the photograph of Barney and Elouise.  Our clasped hands with their defining lines will speak silently of dedication, forgiveness, commitment, and undying love.  True love really does stand the test of time..

True love never rusts...

~CC Catherine, Continuing my best still... to Stay in The Day