Forty Years Together

A Marriage Shaped by Grace

Today, Kendall and I celebrate our fortieth wedding anniversary.

Forty years feels both wonderfully long and surprisingly quick. When I look back at our original wedding photograph, I see two people beginning a life together without knowing where that life would take them—or how much joy, growth, healing, laughter, challenge, and grace those years would contain.

I love the life we have built together in our mountain home. Some of our happiest moments have not been grand occasions, but the simple rhythms of shared life—gardening, hiking with the dogs, playing pickleball, settling in to watch a good movie, sharing meals, praying together, and welcoming the people we love into our home.

I am deeply grateful for the man Kendall is. I admire the courage with which he has faced and overcome some very difficult circumstances, his kindness, his delightfully quirky sense of humor, and his wonderful culinary skills. He has brought strength, laughter, tenderness, and many excellent meals into the life we share. I have certainly been well fed during these forty years—in more ways than one.

We have enjoyed many wonderful years together, and we have also walked through some deeply painful and difficult seasons. I can honestly say that we would not have made it through some of those challenges without God in our lives. He has brought healing to each of us individually and to our marriage. He has guided us, strengthened us, corrected us, comforted us, and taught us how to love one another more honestly and deeply.

Like every couple, we entered marriage carrying experiences, wounds, expectations, and ways of protecting ourselves that had been formed long before we met. Over time, we began to recognize that some disagreements were not only about what had just happened. Sometimes an older hurt had been touched. We learned to take responsibility for our own wounds and triggers and to invite God into those tender places. A spouse can offer love, understanding, support, and safety, but no human being can heal every wounded place within another. God has had to remain our healer and the deepest source of our identity, security, and love.

At the same time, we have learned to understand one another’s tender places. Love does not mean walking nervously around each other, afraid to speak honestly. But it does mean learning where the bruises are and choosing not to press on them.

Communication has been an ongoing lesson. Listening with an open heart is quite different from waiting for the other person to stop speaking so we can explain why we are right. We have tried to listen with the desire to understand and love rather than simply to defend ourselves.

We do not always remember an event in the same way or arrive at the same conclusion. Two people can experience the same conversation very differently. Sometimes love says, “I may not fully see this as you do, but I care that this is how you experienced it.” We have certainly not done this perfectly. Listening without becoming defensive has occasionally required something resembling remedial education. But we have grown.

Loving one another well does not mean never disappointing or hurting each other. It means becoming willing to repair what has been damaged—to apologize, take responsibility, forgive, offer reassurance, and return to difficult conversations after emotions have settled. We have had to choose not to let pride or silence create a distance that quietly grows.

Some of our differences have not disappeared, and perhaps they never will. Marriage joins two people; it does not melt them into one personality. Part of loving one another has been allowing each other to remain wonderfully—and occasionally inconveniently—different.

Friendship has been essential to our marriage. A life built only around responsibilities can easily become more like a working partnership than a loving relationship. We have needed the laughter, the shared interests, the ordinary conversations, and the time spent simply enjoying one another.

We have also learned to keep noticing what is good in each other and to say those things aloud. Appreciation should not merely be felt. We all need to know that the person closest to us still sees us, values us, and enjoys who we are.

There have been times when we have needed to examine the expectations we placed upon one another. It is easy to expect a spouse to know what we need without our saying it, to respond exactly as we would, or to fill places in us that only God can truly fill.

Yet learning that one person cannot meet every need has never meant that the needs within our marriage do not matter. When one of us has expressed a reasonable need that the other could meet, whether for time, affection, reassurance, encouragement, practical help, emotional connection, or the particular closeness shared between husband and wife, love has called us to listen and respond whenever possible.

We have not always understood each other perfectly or responded in exactly the right way. Still, we have learned that love does not continually dismiss the other person’s needs or allow distance to become a form of punishment. Love listens. Love cares. Love looks for a way to draw near.

Seeking God first has helped us love one another with greater freedom. Neither of us has to become the other person’s source of everything. We can support, encourage, comfort, and care for one another while still allowing God to be God.

Commitment has mattered through every season. There have been times when love felt joyful, romantic, and easy. There have been other times when love looked like choosing one another again, standing together through difficulty, and asking God for enough grace for the next step.

Commitment should never be merely assumed. Our spouse needs to hear and experience, “I am still here. I am still choosing you. We will face this together.”

This anniversary is not only meaningful for Kendall and me. It is also the wedding anniversary of our spiritual son and daughter, Andrew and Olivia. They chose to be married on our anniversary 4 years ago, and I had the great honor of officiating their ceremony. Kendall served as the soloist and also escorted Olivia down the aisle. The newer photograph was taken on that beautiful day.

Since then, we have loved watching their marriage grow, and more recently, they welcomed their first baby, Nora. It brings us such joy to see the loving family they are building together.

As Kendall and I celebrate these forty years, I am not celebrating a perfect marriage between two perfect people. I am celebrating the faithfulness of God, the healing He has brought, the friendship we have nurtured, the difficulties we have survived, and the love that has continued to grow through every season.

Forty years later, I am still grateful to be sharing this life with Kendall—and still choosing him with love.

What is one thing you have learned about loving another person well—whether in marriage, family, or friendship? Or share something you are celebrating today so we can celebrate with you. 💜