With Eternal Love In Christ ~ ~ ~ We Lit The Candle

It was on this night 48 years ago that we lit the candle.

I walked down the aisle to meet my Beloved, and in front of family and friends gathered there, we said: “I do.”

We said: I do take you ~ to love and to cherish ~ above all others ~

I choose you to share my life ~ for better or worse ~ richer or poorer ~ in sickness and in health until death us do part.

We knelt together, blessed by the pastor, with a song of prayer sung over us ~ ~ then we lit the candle.

We took our own individual flames and joined them together as One in Christ.

We lit the candle to say:
Now our two lives are lived with the guidance of a Higher Power ~ a Sacred Presence ~ always with us no matter what we face.

We lit the candle full of young love and ideals for a perfect life of bliss ~ to live happily ever after.

And then came 48 years ~ one after another ~ tumbling into challenges that would rock our very souls ~ ~ ~

~ the children to raise
~ the financial woes
~ the fights over things we thought that mattered
~ the stresses of work and school
~ the illness that took away my life and work
~ the rocky years that brought us to the brink of parting ways

But we lit the candle ~
we said the words of promise ~ and so we carried on.

We fought the storms and found our way back again and again to the Light that shone ever deeper within us, and through us, and as us.

We built a life together in wonder and awe, that began on that night so very long ago, in that moment of grace, when we lit the candle.

Happy Anniversary, My Dearly Beloved Peter

With Eternal Love in Christ,

Anna Lin