"Son, you don't know what love is..."

I was telling our Sunday Bible Class the other day about one of those pearls of wisdom that somehow stick with you over the years....

It was about 1993 when a wise old professor type at Concordia College, Bronxville decided to razz me and my girlfriend at the time, young Miss Brenda Miert. I don't remember the full context of the conversation, but he was teasing us because Brenda was a bit older than I. "Robbing the cradle" or something.

I must have said something like, "Ah, but age doesn't matter when you're in love".

But he certainly said exactly this: "Son, you don't know what love is until you've been married 30 years".

Well today, we're half way there. Happy 15th Anniversary, to my cradle-robbing love!

And that crotchety old guy was kinda right. I think what he was really saying was that love grows. I know our marriage has deepened and grown these 15 years in ways I couldn't have predicted or imagined. Parenthood, too, has added a dimension to marriage that grows that love in grand and sublime fashion.

And I trust it will grow even more in the next 15. I'm looking forward to seeing it. As Brenda said to me the other day, "It still feels like we're just getting started!"

Our God, who instituted and established marriage certainly knew what he was doing. And as the years go by, Brenda and I have found more and more blessings in it, and grown in our love for God and each other. May we continue to do so, by his grace.

And maybe one day, years into the future, I will find some youngster and repeat the quip... "Son, you don't know what love is..."