There Are No Perfect Marriages, But There Are Perfect Moments

 

Marrying relatively late in life, Mary Bosanquet and John Fletcher were only together for a few years before his death, but their mutual love and respect and their shared ministry in and around Madeley fueled one of early Methodism's most successful partnerships.  She nursed him devotedly and after his death often dreamed of him advising and supporting her in the same gentle way he had done in life. When he died, she mournfully wrote that the sun of all her earthly joys had set, but she faithfully kept preaching and teaching, inspiring countless women and men in their Christian journeys into the nineteenth century.

Our 31st wedding anniversary is later this month, and I'll be officiating at the backyard wedding of our next-door neighbor in less than a week. It's going to be small and Covid-19 safe with me and the couple and about 8 mask-wearing guests, so not much like ours with its 150 or so guests and several attendants.  Weddings can be stressful events, but fortunately this one promises to be pretty laid back.  

I'm working on the service and plan to make some remarks though not to deliver an actual homily. Naturally my mind is focused on scripture and the Church's understanding of matrimony, but I'm also influenced by the years of wedlock I've shared with my husband. The picture above is of our hands just minutes after we became a married couple, when we were so young, so much in love, so clueless of what might lie ahead.  

And there has been plenty of stuff in the past three decades! We've moved several times, been through seminary and seminary and yet more seminary, adopted and reared two children, survived his one job and my several churches, traveled and sheltered at home, laughed, cried, argued, read and watched television, cooked and cleaned and painted and built a life together.  He's still my favorite person in the world, and there's nobody who makes me laugh or smile more. 

When I was in Divinity School, I apparently told an unmarried friend who really wanted to be married that there are no perfect marriages but that there are perfect moments. Thank you, God, for the sun of my earthly joys, with whom I've shared many a perfect moment. 💟