In less than a week our youngest son will marry the girl of his dreams. This post isn’t specifically for them but for all of us who desire a life-long marriage.

I’m going to tell you a story. It’s a true story and one that’s not so common anymore. The story started one evening, more than a quarter of a century ago. An evening of both the mundane and the divine.  The players were a girl, a guy and another girl. Lest I lead you astray from the beginning, the first two were not a pair, but rather friends who had know each other for just a few months. They did not date, there wasn’t any romantic interest, as the girl had her eyes on yet another guy.

As the evening progressed the first girl casually introduced the guy for which she had only feelings of friendship to the second girl. In truth the second girl also had her eyes on another guy…in fact the same as her female friend, but that’s a story for perhaps another time. The new girl and the guy whom she had just met enjoyed the rest of the evening chatting and playing games. To anyone nearby it likely seemed an encounter of little consequence.

But no so to our friend. The guy who met the girl for the very first time. To him this was perhaps the most important human encounter of his relatively young life. That very same night before he went to sleep he recorded the name of the girl and the date of their meeting. He knew this was a date of great significance. In fact it was not much later that he decided he would marry that girl. They were married exactly 603 days later. As of today that marriage has been a wonderfully happy union of 8,816 days.

The Point of Our Story

There are two reasons the man and woman have been married so long when many have fallen to challenges and temptations and have ended their unions in the sadness of divorce. Only two things stand between a life long marriage of beauty and joy in the midst of any and all circumstances. Two simple factors.

A Critical Aside

There is a requirement to these factors. They can not function as one time events. Like food and air they must be repeated many times. In fact many times every day. Not once and finished forever, but with careful consistency. A couple which applies these factors for a week, a year, a decade or even longer and then stops will soon see the end of their marriage. A life long marriage requires a life long daily commitment to both of these factors.

In Our Story

In our story the factors were applied soon after the couple met. You see, the young man decided to marry the young woman, then he took action to win her heart. The young woman decided to say yes to his proposal, then took action to be married. They made a decision to commit to each other on that day so many years ago and they have taken action every day to keep that commitment. There are only two factors required for a life long marriage. There are only two factors required for a life long marriage. Click To TweetThose factors are to decide and to take action. To decide every day and throughout the day to stay happily married to each other. To take action every day and throughout the day to show love to one another. To decide every day and throughout the day to stay close to God so He can mold your hearts closer to His and to each other’s. To take action every day to read His word and pray for His guidance.

There is Nothing Else

Marriage is simple. At times it may not be easy, but it is incredibly simple. At times marriage may not be easy, but it is incredibly simple. Click To TweetThe simplicity of always deciding that no matter what that the the marriage will endure and the taking of actions that will make it so. If you will both, individually and together, consistently decide and take action then nothing in this world can pull you apart from each other. But never forget, it is the consistency of decisions and actions that makes your life long marriage possible.

4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ ? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
-Matthew 19:4-6

Love you all!

-Troy