5 decades.

Today I had my first big outing as Kelly and I traveled to Anderson, IN to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of life-long friends of Kelly's (only 27 yrs for me!), HL and Sandy Baker.  

I was a little nervous about being an hour and half away from home, in a setting I wasn't really familiar with -- but these are people who we love and who have loved us so well for all these years and it was really important to both of us to get there.
I'm so grateful to be able to say: Things went GREAT!  We celebrated H & Sandy and also got to see friends we haven't seen for years.  The most powerful moment for me was when H said, to all gathered, that COMMITMENT trumps everything else when it comes to staying married for 5 decades.
Kelly and I talked on the drive home (with me crashed in the reclined seat!)
about how brilliant God is when He brings two people together -- only He knows how her story will affect his life and how his story will powerfully integrate into her entire life as well.  IF they both chose that part of God's brilliance to take hold in their lives.  H & Sandy have experienced that very thing and I'm grateful to say that so have Kelly & I (of course we are only half way to 50!!).  Only God knew how powerfully I would be affected by Kelly's love and real need for community.  He has taught me the importance of having good friends who are deeply involved in our lives.   And it was a generous Father who decided that Kelly would benefit from standing with and deeply loving a woman who would have health challenges (and other kinds too!) almost their whole married life. 

God's knows exactly what He's doing and 

those plans are always so much better than ours.

Whether you're single or married, sick or well, alone or surrounded by others, 

rich or trying to figure out how you're going to make it this month...

you can trust that.

God's got it figured out and that COMMITTMENT does trump everything else.

Still more than grateful,
Suze