Sixty is an impressive number. It has some heft; it sounds significant. Sixtieth birthdays are celebrated. The end of a sixty day probationary period on a new job brings a sigh of relief. A five-year car loan ends with payment number sixty.
Sixty minus one is just a number. Fifty-nine has no ring to it, it suggests no milestone reached. It’s simply a number signifying nothing more than a progression; 57, 58, 59, yawn.
So it’s going to be a quiet day today as my wife and I congratulate each other on fifty-nine years of marriage. No relatives are coming into town to celebrate. No special mention in the church bulletin. No picture in the newspaper. It’s not SIXTY YEARS! It’s only fifty-nine.
In 1966, these two clueless (and skinny!) kids made a vow before a small group of people in a white church building, swearing before them and God to be together until death. Sounded easier then; much more difficult to live out. When you’re young and healthy and in love (and skinny!), the richer, poorer; sickness and health; and forsaking all others stuff sounds so remote. Yeah, sure. We can do that.
Although we’ve never been rich (by American standards), we have never been in want either. And we’ve been mostly healthy, except for a heart attack, cancer, depression, and that COVID thing. The one who is sick suffers; the other one suffers the agony of watching their spouse suffer. We raised two daughters, and have three grandchildren. We have lived in this house for over fifty years. We have a good and godly church family; worship with them every week. We study, pray, and serve with them. We have fellowship at meals, at coffee time after worship, on the golf course, and in my wife’s sewing circle.
Not going to do much today. I plan to buy three roses for my wife, one for her, one for me, and one for God. Each one essential to the survival of, to the thriving of, this union. Tonight I have choir practice, and tomorrow is evening bible study, so we’ll wait until Friday to have a home-prepared steak dinner and a glass of wine. We probably won’t talk much, but there’s lots to remember. Even if it’s only fifty-nine years.
Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Genesis 2:23-24 (ESV)
Robert Frohlich 