In Love 
By Bruce McIver 

[Dr. Bruce McIver is retired from the pastorate of the Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas.]

    Valentine’s Day is not a part of the Christian Calendar.  But it’s a part of the McIver calendar—at least, it had better be!  Thirty-eight years ago (February 13) Lawanna and I said our “I do’s.”  Lawanna became an instant wife, pastor’s wife, mother and, within three years, mother twice again.  That brought us back to reality—in a hurry.

    About the time of our marriage I read and clipped the enclosed article.  I think I found it, appropriately, in Life magazine.  If my source is not correct it’s still about as close to life as you can get!

The wedding dress is folded away.  The love nest in the suburbs turns out to have a leaky roof, crabgrass, a mortgage that burns up every second paycheck.  The babies are not the dimpled darlings of the ads, but imperious tyrants who have to be bottled, burped, and changed—and later agonized over.  The groom, alas, never earned that million dollars.  His wife lost her figure.  There are moments when he would like to run off to Australia; moments when she wishes she had entered a nunnery.  And still…and still…

You see them in Florida or on porches up north:  an old man reading the newspaper through a magnifying glass; an old woman wearing sandals to ease her aching arches.  In a little while they will eat supper, and then watch television, each knowing exactly what the other is thinking; and through the night each will rest content because the other is there.

They are in love.  They have always been in love, although sometimes they would have denied it.  And because they have always been in love they have survived everything that life could throw at them, even their own failures.  This is what it means to have a happy marriage.

    Now, I’m sitting here this morning remembering the first time I read this article.  I chuckled over “magnifying glasses”…”sandals”…”aching arches”…and “each knowing what the other is thinking” (I’m still not sure about that one!).

    But I’m typing this in my study today while wearing reading glasses and house slippers, and while nursing some pain in my back.  Lawanna is in the other room drinking a second cup of coffee, browsing through the morning paper, wearing reading glasses and house slippers, and also nursing pain in her back.

    The television is off and the phone is not ringing.  There is a satisfying silence as we begin a new day.

    Togetherness.
    We are in love.
    It’s a gift.
    From God.

Updated Wednesday, June 13, 2001