Celebrating yet another wedding anniversary

Many moons ago Caroline and I decided to not to wait until we had finished all our studies to get married.  Instead, at the end of our time as students at Cambridge, she was at Girton College and I was at Jesus College, we got married in her home town of Wrexham in North Wales on Saturday 26 August 1967.  When we came back from our honeymoon in Southern Ireland, we then moved to Manchester to start the next round of our studies.  Caroline began a one-year course in teaching which led to her receiving a Post Graduate Certificate in Education, before going on to teach History at Bury Grammar School for Girls, while I began to train for ministry at the Northern Baptist College.  At the same time I began a PhD at Manchester University where F.F. Bruce, the John Ryland’s Professor, was my supervisor.

This coming 26 August when we shall be celebrating yet another wedding anniversary falls on a Monday.  Unfortunately it is a Bank Holiday Monday when the best restaurant in Chelmsford, where we live, will not be open. So instead we will go there the following day to have a very special celebratory meal, which I am hoping will be memorable.  Thankfully I will not have to buy Caroline any special jewellery because it will not be our diamond anniversary.  No doubt in three years’ time when we shall be celebrating 60 years of marriage, then I will have to buy her a diamond – fortunately it will not be a diamond ring, because she already has one of those, but perhaps two diamond ears studs – who knows?  No, this year it will just be a 57^th anniversary.

Interestingly, a 57^th year still is something special.  I discovered that it is an Azalea wedding anniversary.  Azalea flowers are a species of the rhododendron family, they are ‘two-lipped’ and fragrant.  I shall therefore see if I can give my loved one an Azalea to celebrate our special anniversary.

57 years is indeed quite an achievement. I am told that only 6% of marriages make it to 50 years, let alone 57!  What is the secret of staying together for 57 years? The American Dolly Parton credited it to ensuring that she and her husband every day spent some time apart.  I appreciate that not every couple can afford a house where the husband and wife can have separate rooms – in our case Caroline spends time in her office, where every day she is on Zoom in her role as the lead governor of the Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, which comprises three major acute hospitals in Basildon, Broomfield (Chelmsford) and Southend, holding the Board to account.  I for my part have a library on the second floor of the house, where I do my writing of books, articles, and blogs.

But having an opportunity to pursue separate interests is only a secondary reason for a marriage which has lasted 57 years. In our case there are two reasons for our Christian marriage of 57 years. First, our marriage is based on our commitment to God; and in the second place it is based on our commitment to each other.

Commitment to God allows for likeminded values and decisions even through all the ups and downs along with the challenges and changes of life.  We have certainly experienced a good deal of challenge, which has at times involved people rejecting us and misunderstanding us, which in turn has understandably turned our four children against the way in which some Christians fail to love one another.  When we put God first in our individual lives, then we benefit one another at the same time.

For Christian couples love for one another is ‘agape’ love, which is God’s kind of love.  Agape love is not a feeling or something you can fall out of.  It involves commitment to one another, however undeserving each of us often is of the love of one another.  This love is all encompassing and totally unconditional.

What the future holds for us, God alone knows.  At the moment we are in relatively good health and have just a few pills to swallow every day.  We have made plans for a major holiday next year, as even also plans for a major holiday in 2026.  However, as James in his Letter wrote we ought to say, “if the Lord wishes” (James 4.15 New Revised Standard Version), or as the more traditional Bible versions put it “if God wills” – or as my grandparents used to say ‘DV’ (a Latin tag ‘Deus Volens’).  Every night before I go to sleep, I pray a brief prayer to the Lorrd, in which I thank God for the day that is past, commit myself into his hands for the night and for the following day, and then go on to say that when the day comes when my earthly life is over, then I pray that God may show his mercy and love, and bring me into his eternal Kingdom, along with all the members of my family and so many, many more people.  The fact is that I am ready to go whenever the Lord calls.  In the words of a former Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, “I have packed my bags and am ready to go”.

However, let me end on a joyful note, Caroline and I look forward to next Monday to celebrating 57 years of marriage. God has blessed us amazingly and certainly beyond our deserving over these past years, and for that we are most grateful to the Lord.