On Relationships...

This is my beautiful bride, Marquita... whom we affectionately call Keda (er uh... I think the spelling is an ebonics thing, lol). She means the world to me, although I probably don't tell her enough. We've been together for 17 years (12 1/2 married, 4 1/2 dating)... we've experienced alot of highs, and we've had some lows. But that's how relationships are, I think. In my relatively short stint as a pastor, I'm finding that these are stressful times for relationships. There are so many things that are taking a toll on people: gas is high, money is low... life is busy, time is short - so many things that bombard our relationships, aren't there?

But our perspective will keep us grounded... and keep us from throwing in the towel on our relationships. A movie I saw last week, Just Married, had a line in it that was CRUCIAL! A husband (played by Ashton Kutcher) and his wife have a horrendous honeymoon, and by the time they're back in the States they're ready to part ways. After a few days, he goes and visits his father... and wants to know if he and his mom were always "in love." His dad says to him, "There were days where your mom and I were really in love... and there were some where we had to really work hard at it."

Then, he picked up a photo album that had pictures of his son and new bride in happy times, and he said, "You never see the hard days in a photo album... but those are the ones that get you from one happy snapshot to another."

Couldn't have said it better myself. ;-)