Amazing Grace

Do you know how many marriages make it to see their 10th wedding anniversary? About 65%.

How about their 25th anniversary? Only 33%.

50th? A meager 5%.

Part of this is a matter of simple math - Americans now tend to marry in the mid 20s instead of their early 20s (or even late teens). That fact alone shaves a fair number of people off the list of candidates for a 50th anniversary.

But math alone cannot explain what some dear friends of mine just celebrated...

I couldn't even find statistics related to their marriage accomplishment. Given the state of our marital culture today, it's unlikely that we'll ever hear of this accomplishment down the road...

Last week Joe and Grace celebrated their 71st wedding anniversary!

Yes, you read that right - they've been married for 71 years. Using numbers doesn't do it justice. Let me try that again.

Joe and Grace have been married for seventy one years!!

Plenty of people don't live that long, let alone stay married that long. But the most amazing part (and the primary reason for the title of this post) is Grace. She has been a loving caretaker of Joe for many years now. He continues to ever-so-slowly slip into the arms of His Creator and Grace is there with him every step of the way. This beautiful woman devotes virtually every moment of every day to the care of her wheelchair-bound husband. Joe's not himself anymore; hasn't been in quite some time. But still, there's Grace.

She's a living, breathing testament to the power of love in marriage.

Faith. Hope. Love.

and Grace. May all of us be able to follow her example.

Hatushili

[FYI: the statistics I cited are from this website.]