Greetings,
I just celebrated my 24th wedding anniversary on June 20th. I know, trust me, I’m just as surprised as you considering I have given my wife countless reasons to question her sanity over the years.
I remember my beautiful bride standing in front of me, tears in my eyes and feeling like the most blessed man on the planet.
To this day, I still do.
I remember the Pastor reciting the script, For Better or Worse. Sickness and Health. Rich or Poor. These I understood.
Then he said, ‘To Have and to Hold. To Have and to Hold. I did not stop to question this phrase. I was extremely nervous. I responded with, ‘I do.’
But to be honest, I did not know what To Have and to Hold meant, at least not then. Twenty-four years later, my wife and I are now experts at To Have and to Hold.
I’m old and if you ask my sons, I’m old fashioned. I wear that title proudly. I’m from the era where if something didn’t work, we worked on it. We fixed it.
In 2026 we tend to discard things quickly. Even things with a lot of life left in them. We discard perfectly good things just because something else comes around that appears better.
You have a perfectly good 1200.00 smartphone. You love it. You stood in line for 9 hours to get it. BUT!… What’s this? The new iPhone 37 is being released? Drum roll please….it has one new feature your old dumb phone does not.
Suddenly your great phone ain’t so great. You know, it’s not as fast as it used to be. It doesn’t charge as quickly and it definitely does not stay charged as long as it used to. You start looking for problems to justify getting that new shiny model with the infrared send button. Plus you never really liked this blue color cause it looks kind of gray.
Oftentimes we treat our marriages with the same mindset. Maybe our spouse does not behave in a way we think they should in a certain situation. We start looking for reasons to be upset. We remember when they left the toilet seat up last September. She thinks your TV is too big.
The grass is greener somewhere else creeps into your thoughts. But here is some truth; the grass is not magically greener on the other side of the fence. The grass is greener where it’s watered. Fertilized. Weeded. Where care is given. Where effort is applied.
The same is true in our marriages. Anything worth having takes effort. We need to learn not to be so quick to discard things. We need to learn not only to have, but to hold as well.
Something’s not going right, you talk through it. When the wheel on your car is out of alignment, you don’t dump the car, it just needs an alignment. When things are out of alignment in your marriage, you work it out. Start back at the beginning. Remember what made you fall in love in the first place. Your first date. How her hand felt like it was created to fit perfectly into yours. The shiver down your neck, exploding into goosebumps the first time he kissed you. The night before your wedding, more anticipation than every childhood Christmas eve ever, rolled into one.
Your wedding day. The moment you laid eyes on the most beautiful woman you’ve ever dreamed of, standing in the back of the church. His hand in yours as he struggled through tears to repeat his vows.
When times get rocky, and they will, because you are both human, never forget how you felt about each other the day you said I do. Never go to bed angry. Be the first to admit you were wrong. Be quick to forgive and slow to anger. Never stop dating each other. Don’t let the honeymoon phase slip away. Remember, flowers are not reserved for special occasions. Be genuinely interested in each other’s hobbies. Never stop sharing your hopes and dreams. Pray together and always put God first and He will guide you and keep you.
There is so much more I could share after 27 years, but I leave you with this; Remember what to have and to hold means. Learn it. Live it. Protect it.
God Bless
