A sacrificial estate. . .

Love and marriage, love and marriage -- They go together like a horse and carriage.
This I tell you brother -- You can't have one without the other!

 

For all the romance, there is something else you cannot have without the other.  Love and marriage are marked by sacrifice.  Sacrifice is the nature of love.  In the grand scheme of things, this sacrificial love is the agape of God manifested in the One who came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.  But on a more local level, you ask any couple who has endured the years and they will tell you that love sacrifices and this sacrifice is the key to a lasting marriage.  It probably does not sound all that romantic but it is.  It is impressive and irresistible.  It compels the same kind of love back not out of duty or obligation but because such sacrificial love is hard to deny.

 

The truth is that most of the time we are more conscious of the sacrifices we make for others than the sacrifices others make for us.  This is especially true of marriage.  But it is good from time to time to remember that you are not the only one who has given up something in the name of love.

 

Now 43 years ago my beloved not only pledged her love to me but began a lifetime of giving up for my sake.  We were barely married and that sacrifice started.  She gave up a job she loved to accompany me to a place neither of us had ever been (Long Island) for the strange estate called a vicarage.  In this internship I was both student and responsible for a fairly large parish (alone at first and then later the pastor they had called arrived).  It was not an easy year.  To make ends meet, she began working nights at a small and less than adequate hospital.  I am not sure I ever acknowledged her sacrifice -- I was too busy getting my feet wet in my vocation.

It was not that there were no good times but she left behind her family and employment and just when things seemed settled, she gave up more to go back to Ft. Wayne.  It was a bittersweet year of work, the only time we actually lived close to her family.  Again, she gave it all up one more time to follow the U-Haul back to New York.  The years there were filled with sacrifice.  When she began work in the local hospital, it was an awkward shift from the big and exciting hospital where she had worked to more of a band-aid station.  She was mother to our children, wife of a pastor whose hours she could never count on, and so far from home it seemed like another country.

When things had settled into a familiar routine, calls started appearing.  We packed up all our things in a moving van and said goodbye to the strangers who had become our friends, and moved to a place neither of us could have ever predicted.  A new job, new schools, new routines, and a husband constantly busy with the church -- you bet the sacrifices continued.  Now we have lived here longer than either of us have lived anywhere.  Two of our kids live here and our two grandchildren.  She no longer works outside the home but that does not mean she does not work.  For more than forty years I have received the labors of her hands and when the day comes that I retire, her work will continue. 

 

Marriage is an estate not simply of love but love that is strong enough to sacrifice, to give without counting the cost, and love the giving.  It is not that love never returns anything or there are no rewards to love or blessings in the great exchange of labors.  But the love that binds us together is bigger than the moment.  It has been my privilege to have known, counted upon, and enjoyed this sacrificial love for most of my life and still she keeps on loving, giving, and serving.

I see now that she has given up more than I can imagine or want to imagine.  It is hard for me to admit it but she gave up far more to love me than I have given up to love her.  She does not often count the cost of this love and the truth is that I am too often blind to that cost but that does not mean the sacrifice does not matter.  It does.  More than anything else, I know her love by these sacrifices.  I will never be able to repay her for all that she has given up for me.  Love does not count the debt or set up a payment plan but it does acknowledge the sacrifice.  For that reason, I write these words today -- our wedding anniversary.  It is not enough to acknowledge my debt to her but it is a beginning.  I love you and I love the way you love me.