Jesus, If You’d told us this back in the ’70s, we would have said, “You’re kidding, right? No way could love at 71 be better than at 21!” After all, in 1925, we’d be a saggy, baggy, gray-haired couple whose idea of a wild night out would be playing euchre after 10 o’clock. And, we, in our youthful wisdom, would have been right.
But OMG, You, who are Love personified, have poured Yourself into our lives for decades. And love just keeps getting better.
OMG, thank You for our marriage of 50 years! Please help us, whether dining in uptown restaurants and cheering winning ball teams — or shoveling snow and cleaning bathrooms — to celebrate life together every day!
O Lord, when big holiday challenges make me feel small, I thank You for giving me this awesome, 6’3” elf who sewed a rip in my winter coat, washed sheets, and cleaned bathrooms. OMG, what a gift he is!
O Lord, thank You for the nearly five decades You have given us since he, a freshman medical student between semesters, and me, his unemployed bride, said, “I do.” Sometimes wedded bliss. Sometimes wedded stress.
Father, You know that for the 11,327th time, I cracked the patio door because I love fresh air. Hubby shivered. “Do you really want that door open?” How have we stayed married 48 years? OMG, You’re right. A lot of love flows straight from You to and through us.
O Lord, You recall that when we got married, Steve was a freshman medical student. I didn’t have a job. We hadn’t seen each other in five months. Father, You could have had us committed. (Our parents thought about it.)
Instead, OMG, You have walked with us, every step, for 48 years. Thank You that our crazy love grows crazier — and better — every year.
OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: No-Temptation Birthday Cake. O Lord, thank You that this pineapple upside-down cake turned out well for my husband’s birthday. And OMG, thank You that though it is his favorite, I can walk away from this cake without a pang.
“It won’t be a stylish marriage; I can’t afford a carriage. But you’ll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.”
According to writer Harry Dacre, his heroine, Daisy Bell, and her sweetheart seemed destined for marital bliss.
My husband and I? Not always.
Whatever a stylish marriage is, I don’t think ours qualifies. I don’t look sweet, either, red face sweating as Hubby and I climb hills on our tandem bike.
We’ve come a long way since our first tandem ride 19 years ago, when we bought the bike as both celebration and consolation for our empty nest.
Hubby explained this “togetherness” hobby would work for us. “It’s the perfect solution for riders of — er — unequal athletic levels.”
Image by Ulrike Mai from Pixabay.
Let Hubby do most of the work? Sounded like a plan to me.
After 30 years, we didn’t expect our first ride would send us back to Marriage 101. That we would nearly take out our neighbor’s trash cans. Starting and stopping required the precision of our operating like bicycle gears. Hubby hadn’t realized navigating turns would be like driving a semi. Dragging an extra person up a hill would resemble hauling an oversize load.
I, taking the back seat, hadn’t realized I’d see nothing in front but Hubby’s back. Nor did I understand that without exception, I had to communicate my intention to procure my water bottle. Once, my shift in balance sent us careening toward a pickup.
Image by Simon Gatdula from Pixabay.
Hubby and I still disagree on how to deal with 4,371 dogs that guard roads throughout our county.
Canines always lunge for riders on the back seat. Ergo, my approach: “Pedal for your — I mean, my — life!”
Hubby’s: “We’ll never outrace them. Yell at the dogs to alert the owner.”
What if the owner commutes to Chicago?
Image by S Hermann and F. Richter from Pixabay.
Despite our differences, we enjoy aspects of the Indiana countryside many people miss — rustling cornfields, forested hills and flower-covered meadows. Cows and horses can’t make heads nor tails of this odd, two-headed creature passing their fields.
Image by Alexas Fotos from Pixabay.
Daisy and her man probably discovered that riding a tandem and achieving wedded bliss are work! Both are acquired tastes — especially puffing up those hills.
Though on that first ride, we hit speed bumps, Hubby and I have kept both tandem and marriage moving. They’re our favorite pastimes.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Have you ever ridden a tandem bicycle?