Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice

I sat down for breakfast with my family and my In-Laws.  My wife and I thought it would be fun to take them out for their 50th wedding anniversary.  Breakfast out with my kids is an adventure unto it's self, but they took us up on the invitation.

We sat down at a nice big round table, the restaurant was full of young families and grand-parents, a very fun scene.  Even with the dull roar of children in all corners of the room we still managed to have a nice conversation and time together.

Anytime you sit with a couple who have shared 50 years of marriage together, I figure you should take the opportunity to ask about marriage in general.  Outside of a few jokes here and there, when it was all broken down it was almost "simple."  My mother-in-law put it, I think rather perfect, and I paraphrase, marriage is all about how you react in the hard times.

It doesn't really get more apt than that.  Being married when it is fun, silly, whimsical, relaxing and engaging isn't hard.  I hear things like, marriage is "work", I don't agree, marriage isn't work, marriage is an opportunity every day to choose to do the thing that will strengthen the marriage, and sometimes that "thing" is not what you want to do.

When you are in a fun time of marriage or a silly time, or a relaxed time, and choosing to do what will strengthen your marriage is spend 10 more minutes laughing as a family, or keep walking with your wife, then marriage is easy.  When what your marriage really needs is you to wake up with your screaming kid and you are both exhausted, or when a spouse loses a job, or quits a great one and you need to bite your tongue when they look for support and you want to scream about responsibility, marriage is challenging.  Your opportunity to strengthen your marriage isn't always so dramatic, it can be as simple as choosing to fix a broken light, or take out the trash, or get the coffee ready, instead of 10 more minutes on Facebook or watching TV.

When Emilia mentioned the hard times though, she was honest, she mentioned that she thought most marriages ended over money problems, and they have been lucky enough to avoid money worries for 50 years.  But my In-Laws have had far more than their fair share of tragedy and tough times; so lacking money problems is only fair.  The tough times though are that way because in the dead of winter, it can be hard to remember what spring is like, and when it is so dark out you can hardly see your hand, and you are lost, thinking about the sunrise is not easy.  When marriage, or any relationship for that matter, is in a truly dark time remembering that the sun will rise is key, it won't stay dark forever.

I often wonder what it must have been like that Good Friday after Christ died.  To go home, your best friend, savior, messiah, dead on a cross.  Do you eat dinner?  I know you cry, but maybe you don't, maybe you are so numb you can't do anything, and yet the sun rises the next day and reality hits you, this is real, He's gone. You likely spend another day morning the loss, and probably don't eat much again.  You try to sleep , and again you don't sleep, so in the early morning you walk to the tomb, and as the sun rises...

I'm lucky, at almost 5 years of marriage, or 1/10th my In-laws, I can't really think of any time I sat down thinking, man this is so dark, hard and impossible to deal with when is the sun going to rise, but what better lesson in marriage than that.  After 5 years, I have still not felt cold or alone, so when that time comes, I know that I have been fortunate enough to experience a glorious spring time of marriage, and that the winter won't last forever.

Life over a cup of fresh squeezed orange juice.