Anniversaries: The rare jewel of marital commitment is a generational gift

Today, my son Rob and daughter-in-law Rachel celebrate 16 years of marriage. 

In a time when people struggle with commitment, I'm proud of their devotion to, and love for each other.

Also this week, my daughter Brenda and son-in-law Idal mark their first year of marriage, their lives now busy with my newborn grandson. May they also find the depth of love and commitment Rob and Rachel have.

Recently, Barbara and I marked our 40th. In January, my Dad and Mom, ages 91 and 86, will be married 65 years.

Dad will remember, Mom probably will not. But even as Alzheimer's disease continues to take her memories, she continues to be devoted to "Daddy."

 It seems, after all, that Love endures.

St. Paul was right, when he declared (1 Cor. 13, NIV): 

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

"Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

"For we know in part and we prophesy in part,  but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."