Having somewhat of a tradition of sharing a marriage story around mine and Stache’s Wedding Anniversary, GrammieChats has been posting such each year, except for the last. Because our fortieth anniversary was fast approaching March 6, 2022, I planned with Stache’s support to gloss over our 39th anniversary, only mentioning it on social media. The vision was to write a new story for our fortieth-ruby anniversary, not overly belaboring readers with our same ol’ lovey stuff. 

To my great sorrow, I was so focused on the anticipated joy of our future anniversary I can hardly remember last year’s celebration. (Thank you, Facebook memories! We went to a German Pub for dinner and played Backgammon together like we did when we were dating.)

Tragedy Strikes

Many of you know that our 40th Wedding Anniversary will not come as we had presumed in God’s perfect plan. We won’t be celebrating marriage together this year—and we won’t ever again, this side of heaven. My beloved Stache was taken this past December, suddenly, in a car accident.

Bless God. I’m not practiced in the ways of mourning through tragic loss. I don’t have tried and true tips to share nor any great wisdom beyond watching for and remembering God’s goodness. What I have are a few regrets that bear significant reminders, perhaps helpful to you, and bucket-loads of gratefulness I hope you will look for in your own lives.

I battled the loss of ‘our Fortieth,’ as if it were a gifted possession from God already given. The loss of Stache was a brutal blow enough. Still, the loss of accomplishing our fortieth seemed only to add that proverbial insult to the cruelest of irreversible injury. 

Who knows why our minds latch onto such things, but mine unabashedly grabbed and held on like a starving thief. Before God, I can tell you it has proven a problematic treasure to hand over what was never mine. 

Reminder #1:  Today, enjoy the gifts God gives. Don’t allow yourself to presumptuously assume more to your life than what is given. 

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit"; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that." But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. James 4:13-17 NKJV

Applying this portion of Scripture into my daily thinking will admittedly take a life overhaul. How often do I boast about tomorrow? The Spirit has been faithful to reveal that this practice is deeply entrenched in my thoughts. Only with His help will I begin to weed this habit out. Recognizing and thanking God for each day as it comes is, of course, God-honoring, but it also reminds us God is God, the very Giver of our next breath.

At some point in this grief process, while focusing on finding my footing in gratefulness, God reminded me that He gifted me precisely Thirty-Nine-Years, Nine-Months, and Fourteen-Days married to Stache. That’s a mouthful I had never thought of, much less specifically thanked Him for.

The point is, I didn’t lose forty years of marriage to a distracted driver. God gave us 39.9 years ‘to have and to hold, for better or for worse.’ He never promised us a day together, but he gave us Fourteen-Thousand-Five-Hundred-Thirty-Four of them! 

In terms of gritty real-to-life, genuine love as Jesus loves, that’s a whole lot of days of trusting God to make our human best, right. That’s a whole lot of days and months and years to be overwhelmingly grateful, trusting God.

Reminder #2:  Christian, your identity is in Christ. Sealed by the Spirit, you are never alone.

As I began to look at life “alone,” the flood gates of my natural inclination towards fear flung wide open and began rushing over my soul. Two-thirds of my life I’ve spent laboring over how to best love my husband—and before that, I dreamt like a silly girl near constantly about it. Who am I, if not striving to be an excellent wife?!

God, ever faithful and quick to rescue, reminded me my identity is in Christ—never in a particular role and most certainly, never in Stache. For once, this time, I heard him the first time—or perhaps I just heard him before I drowned. Either way, it was lifesaving. Good days and bad, I know I am not alone, and I have the same purpose as always—to glorify God with whatever life He gives me.

Reminder #3:  Remember God and BELIEVE

I can’t for the life of me recall the circumstances in which God recently drew my attention back to the ancient Israelites. Still, early on in this mourning process, I began meditating on the story in Numbers 14. I encourage you to read it and discuss it with God regarding your own lives. 

Although God miraculously rescued the Israelites—just forty days out of Egypt—God brought them to the edge of the Promised Land, and they refused to go in. They completely forgot God’s power and love for them. A few legit scary giants in the way, and they were wailing to return to Egypt—a life of brutal slavery. They didn’t believe God or the possibility that He could miraculously give them what He promised.

God’s word says, 

Then the Lord said to Moses: How long will these people reject Me? And how long with they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them? Numbers 14:11 NKJV

Without a doubt, God intervened and performed many personal and family-specific wonders within our marriage. From the start, even though we did it all wrong, God was there for two wayward souls looking for love and happiness ‘in all the wrong places.’

This Far The Lord Has Helped Us

I have asked God to remind me of His many works—whether I knew of them at the time or not—I long to remember, trust, and praise God for how far He’s brought us and the circumstances He used to get us here. I’ve started a list of God’s works and miracles in our life in the back of my Bible, a sort of bullet point Ebenezer Stone stating, ‘this far the Lord has helped us.’

However, acknowledging the facts of one’s life history and boldly living according to the miracles displayed are two dramatically different things. As I consider my potential future, I’ve had to ask myself, ‘Do I believe God?’

• Do I believe He loves me?

• Do I believe He calls me His own?

• Do I REALLY believe God is good? 

Enough to accept His gifts and move forward, do I believe God, trusting Him to remove all obstacles I perceive along the way? Over and over, I’ve prayed like the father in Mark 9:24, ‘…Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!’ And He does. 

Learning from the Israelites—as God has blessed us with the ability to do—my hope and desire is to remember the works of God and to believe He is who He says He is.

For today, this beautiful day, March 6, 2022, I am waiting expectantly to recall and praise Him for every treasured memory and every good work from His hand. I will celebrate and trust His goodness.

And should it please God to give us all another day, or month, or years, may He be honored with our arms open wide, ready to receive His goodness, forever and always believed.