Love and faithfulness meet together;
    righteousness and peace kiss each other.

Psalm 85:10

On a hot – very hot – August day in 1979 a 23-year-old college-student from the south of England and a 23-year-old graduate student from Central Florida stood beside each other at the front of a Presbyterian Church and promised to apply every resource at their disposal to honor a simple vow.

“To have and to hold from this day forward; for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health; to love and to cherish, till death do us part.”

As of today we have done all of it a hundred times over (other than the death part) and we have done it as best we could in just about every possible circumstance.

This marriage has been and is, in the words of the photo-books we put together after every major vacation, an “Epic Adventure.” Or, the title we have used on some of the volumes, “Great Adventures with Rebekah and Derek.”

And it has worked, in the face of all sorts of overwhelming life circumstances, simply because we are both serious practitioners of two key words: faithfulness and commitment.

Rooted in something real:

What we have done – are doing – over the years, is to doggedly believe that there are principles and ideals and truths that stand in a sense above and beyond the inconsistencies of day-to-day life. Or, in other words, Life Together as we experience it only works when we subsume ourselves to and in a higher calling, one we not only aspire to but are guided by.

If we fail to center our understanding of truth outside of our own experience, then truth is easily trumped by self and by emotion and by convenience and preference, and suddenly what should be immutable has little more weight than a suggestion.

Rebekah and I are 47 years into something remarkable exactly because our lives are rooted in something remarkable. And that “something” is the rock solid standard of love and grace and service and faithfulness that is faith in and reliance upon God.

This whole story is so much bigger than us. For forty-seven years our story has been a part of “The Greatest Story Ever Told.”

More Grace:

So Rebekah and I are not an amazing marriage and partnership because we have never taken a misstep or put a foot wrong. We have this amazing story because we understand – and practice – faithfulness and commitment, and we practice it in the context of following Jesus.

This is what is so cool about the whole grace thing. God does not accept us because we are good – we are more and more drawn into goodness because God accepts us. Our marriage is a practical workshop of love, grace, mercy, healing, encouragement, forgiveness, goodness, kindness and joy.

I believe these 47 years have been an ongoing work of grace. I also believe our marriage is – always – a demonstration of what is possible when we are committed and faithful, both to God and to one another.

So, “Happy Anniversary to Us!” In love, and because of love – DEREK