Anniversaries

We just celebrated our fifth anniversary as pastor of Lighthouse Pentecostal Church in Wausau, Wisconsin. What a wonderful display of thanksgiving and appreciation was shown toward my wife and me by the Lighthouse church family. Great kindness and generosity was “slathered” on us. We felt so special. I never do feel comfortable in the spotlight, but it is so encouraging to see that what we do with our lives is truly making a difference.

Bill and Marsha Davis (friends from Sandwich, Illinois) came to celebrate with us and to minister in the morning and evening services. They are friends whom we met in our very first year of marriage. We had such a good time together, along with Rick and Vondeleigh Robinson (missionary friends from Turkey), who also were in town and spent time with us in fellowship. What a great weekend we had. It truly seems like just a few months have passed, (not years), since we arrived in Wausau. God has been good and has done great things.

Anniversaries are like mile-markers. They are times of reflection and introspection. They are times when we turn and look behind us and do a “self-check”. My wife has a journal in which she lists how we spent every one of our 37 wedding anniversaries. We can recount every restaurant we dined at in celebration of our wedding day. We know where we were on our first anniversary, and our second, third, fourth, and etc. We occasionally recollect where we were on “such and such” a date and talk about the significance, or the humor, or the wonder of the occasion. Just yesterday we passed by the little church where, nearly 38 years ago, we stood at the altar and pledged ourselves to each other before God in matrimony.

She also has a journal of the trip we took to Europe in celebration of our 25th wedding anniversary. She brought it with us and read parts of it while we were recently traveling out of town. The journal includes receipts, sketches, and side-notes of that exciting adventure across the Atlantic. What memories came back to us.

Anniversaries worth celebrating are the result of a unique combination of personal success for those with a determined spirit, along with a huge dose of God’s great blessing and providence. Each occasion becomes a treasure that cannot be lost, stolen, or taken from us. We may lose our house, car, possessions, but we cannot lose an anniversary.

To remember where you have been, to recognize what you have experienced, and to understand God’s great blessing on your life is such a pleasure. What great joy and satisfaction it is to know that Jesus Christ has been there all the while. The riches of His grace are incalculable and His faithfulness endures to all generations.

Enough anniversaries, lined up in a row, make a life. What a wonderful life it is when Jesus Christ is at the center of it all.