With Valentine’s Day less than a week away, it seems like a good time to talk about love.

But what makes it an even better time—actually, no, the perfect time—is the story of two people who exchanged wedding rings on Valentine’s Day fifty years ago. And what makes it even more special is that I happen to know these two individuals pretty well. Yes, I happen to be part of their progeny. I would say, I’m the “fruit of their loins” because that sounds somewhat biblical, but I’m afraid that would make my mother blush and my father guffaw awkwardly.

On Valentine’s Day this year, these two young ‘uns will be celebrating their 50^th wedding anniversary.

For a substantial part of those 50 years, I’ve had a front-row seat to their love. And I can say this for sure: they are not perfect. Their love is not perfect. Their marriage is not perfect. But.. but.. but, they have always leaned on the One who is perfect in every way—and that has made their commitment to each other grow stronger through the years.

Here are five simple lessons I’ve learned from my parent’s love for each other.

Lesson 1: Appreciate each other

After half a century of being together, my dad still compliments my mom. Sometimes, embarrassingly so. As teenagers, my sister and I would roll our eyes when our dad enthusiastically praised my mom for the “best chocolate cake” he had ever eaten in his entire life or looked admiringly at her when she dressed up for a party. And while my dear madre pretended to be mortified by the unnecessary deluge of compliments, she was secretly appreciative. It’s often the little things.

Lesson 2: Settle your squabbles

If you need to settle your squabbles, here’s something you need to do: you need to squabble in the first place. Being an extreme people-pleaser who runs from the mildest of conflicts, when I watched my parents bicker about the mind-numbingly inane stuff, I would often cringe. But healthy relationships involve some amount of expressing one’s irritation, don’t they? While I doubt my parents ever laid eyes on a ‘Make Your Marriage Better’ type book, they knew how to draw boundaries. Their fights could get heated, but they never ever got ugly. And they always simmered down, apologized without much fanfare, and life went on at an easy clip. Sometimes, being the “bigger person” means backing down and letting you ego take a backseat. My parents did that well because they honored each other more than they valued their “right” to be right.

Lesson 3: Be in each other’s corner

If you catch anyone mildly disrespecting my dad, you’ll have a 5-foot-nothing, silver-haired, eyes-of-steel Indian grandma to contend with. Growing up, in my home, husband-bashing or wife-shaming simply had zero place. My parents always speak highly of each other to other people. While it matters how you speak to your spouse, it also matters how you speak about them to others. Stand up for each other. Have the other person’s back. Be their cheerleader. Always.

Lesson 4: Listen like you mean it

Like most people of the female species, my mother is a storyteller. She can make the phonebook sound captivating. She can convert a dental appointment into a dramatic tale of intrigue and suspense. The lady can talk (now you know where I get it from)—and, after fifty years of listening, my father is genuinely interested in what she has to say. To my mom’s credit, she holds space for my dad’s stories too. Like most people of the male species, he is a little less “gifted” as a storyteller. Incidents he narrates usually revolve around a visit to a bank or something he read in the newspaper. I don’t know if my mom is invested in my dad’s stories, but I can say she is still interested in what he has to say. And that’s important. We all need to feel heard.

Lesson 5: Let Jesus be the Foundation

Ask my dad to pray in front of a crowd and he gets the jitters. Ask my mom to share her testimony at church and she will pack her bags for a really long vacation. Although neither of them speaks volumes about their faith, their faith speaks volumes. Their personal prayer life, their love for the Word of God, their involvement in the church community, their routines, their love for others, their hospitality, the way they raised their children (Ahem. That would be a humble brag), their integrity in the smallest of matters, all of those things speak a powerful testimony. Jesus was—and is—the center of their lives, even though they themselves were never center-stage Christians. I’m thankful for an example of everyday, routine faith, of the example of reading the Word without Bible-thumping, of the prayers that are not broadcast but our definitely heartfelt.

There are lots more lessons where that came from. But the point is not to paint a picture of a perfect couple but a faithful God who held two imperfect people together.

Many of us may not get 50 years to do this right. But if you’re married, you know what you do have? You have today to do this right.  In all our startling imperfections, may we lean on the One who is perfect and love each other as Christ loved the church.

 

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