“On Loving Happily Ever After”

Kelsey is engaged! I invite you to read over my shoulders as I post letters to our granddaughter and her fiancé in the upcoming weeks. Each will have a tidbit of wisdom to chew on gleaned from living 55 happily incompatible years with Grandpa.

Marriage is inviting someone to move into your closest space. That’s what makes it both so difficult and so marvelous. As a self-centered humans, learning how to love each other well is work ’til death do us part, but it is SO WORTH IT. What a gift to get to spend a lifetime with your best friend.

Grandpa and I were madly in love as 18 & 19 year old newlyweds, but had no idea how we would cherish each other like we do now after walking through a heap of hills and valleys. Along the way we’ve reached out for lots of help, and that has made all the difference.

Austin, we enjoyed how you sent a request to friends and family for bits of “happily ever after” tips to surprise Kelsey on your first fiancé date night. You gave a great illustration of how to implement my tip for this week: 

To learn to love well, get help from others.

• Choose carefully the tribe(s) you hang out with because they will have great impact as they invisibly guide you into what is “normal”, subtly yet powerfully affecting how you live every day life. You tend to live like those you keep close by.
• Stay connected with people whose lives and values you admire, for even if they aren’t in your closest circle right at the moment, there will days are coming when you will be glad you kept them on your team.
  Seek help from friends you’ve never met, those authors of good books as you share videos, articles, and special events together.
• Keep learning. Make a habit to ask people, “So what do you feel makes a good relationship?”
• And don’t be reluctant to reach out for special counsel through the rough places. We all need help at different times.
• Most importantly, talk to God who dreamed up this idea of male and female. Although He doesn’t promise He’ll keep bad things from happening as we roam this earth, He does promise He will be ever-present which comes wrapped in love, peace, and joy even in the messy middle of life.

We look forward to your beginning this next generation of marriages in our family. May your legacy be a strong one and your commitments become a most marvelous messy merging of two lives devoted to keeping your love on for a lifetime together. Hugs, Grandma V

Readers:  If you’ve enjoyed “listening in”, check future posts on my upcoming book NEVERENDING GODSTORIES: Adventures of a Lifetime with Him”.