Few of us really understand what we are committing to when we vow in marriage … Jean Syswerda opens our eyes.
Elisa
Grow Old With Me
By Jean Syswerda
We married on a warm and blustery May evening, our mouths speaking words of love, and oh so glibly, vows of forever. Not that we weren’t serious about those vows. We were. We just had no idea.
We had no idea the different types of pain and trauma that lay ahead.
In sickness and in health. In poverty and wealth.
Today I smile wryly at our clueless selves. House fires … two of them! Seriously sick children. The death of a grandchild. And an accident that left a young son-in-law with quadriplegia.
However, I can’t forget the joys as well, great swaths of happiness and laughter and good times between and sometimes right in the middle of those hard times. Weddings. Family vacations. Long talks and silliness.
I have always loved John Lennon’s song, “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be.” With a recent emergency room visit with my now aging husband, our “best is yet to be” took a distinct left turn. It’s like God said, you think you’re on this straightforward path, but you’re not. Turn here. Instead of a golden path straight into the future together, our path has had so many sudden turns that it looks more zig-zaggy than straight.
That turn has begun to change our dynamic as husband and wife. I’m now caring for a beloved man whose step is weak, whose memory fails him, and whose deafness isolates him. So how does one live out the vows of more than 50 years in a way that honors our partner and pleases the God we serve? We now recognize the deeper truth of the vows we made. I recall our pastor counseling us before marriage saying, “You marry now and plan to stay together because you’re so much in love. But after your ceremony you stay together because you vowed to do so.”
I now care for my husband not simply out of love, although there’s deep meaning in that. I care for him because I vowed to stand with him no matter what our future looked like. In this season I oh-so-imperfectly mirror Christ’s love and sacrifice. I take seriously the admonition of Philippians 2:3-4 (in my own words): “I will not act selfishly, out of my own ambition or desires. I value my husband above myself. I look to his needs and interests before my own.”
Does that mean I completely ignore my own needs? Does that mean I’m never overwhelmed or frustrated? Do I never get angry that it has come to this? How foolish it would be to ignore those feelings. It’s the imperfect part of mirroring Christ’s love. It’s the weak part of my humanity. It’s also the opportunity to “boast…about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses…For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).
Do I like admitting weakness? No, I do not. Nevertheless, here’s my reality: I can be short-tempered and irritable. I can be pleasant to others and unpleasant to my husband. My honesty here hurts. But when I fail the most spectacularly, God’s grace carries me and gives me strength to try again, to show a deep love for my husband in ways I never expected.
Growing old together may not look anything like we pictured on that blustery May evening, but it’s our journey with all its unexpected turns. We slow down a little to accommodate weakness, physical on his part, emotional on mine. We hold hands now for stability as much as love. We talk of our kids and grands and great grands who are aging right along with us (although they are still young). We press on together, still in love and still committed, holding hands with each other and with God all along the way.
Jean E. Syswerda is first and foremost a wife, a momma, and a grandma. She and her husband of over fifty years live in western Michigan. Jean enjoys traveling, watermelon, bringing new life to old furniture, reading good historical fiction, and the warmth of Florida sunshine in the winter. Jean is an author and a former editor and associate publisher at Zondervan Publishing House. She has written numerous books and Bible studies, including the best-selling Women of the Bible (co-authored with Ann Spangler), which has sold over a million copies. She is also the author of My Bedtime Story Bible and the Super Heroes Bible. Most recently Jean authored the notes within the NIV Kingdom Girls Bible for elementary-aged girls. What better way to help girls than by connecting them with the women who are part of God’s story. Eve and Ruth and Mary have much to teach today’s Emmas and Chloes and Olivias.
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