We read the story of Jade and Sean as part of the Marriage Year 4 posts and Jade was so inspired by taking time to reflect on her marriage that she invited her folks to do the same and so we have this stunning post by her mom, Shelley.

Lombards

Deon and I were married on August 30 1986, which means we have been married for 28 years this year.

I would love to say it was plain sailing from the beginning but it wasn’t. We were married under ‘not so ideal’ conditions – I was pregnant and felt a lot of guilt that we had let God and our family down. Through the first few years we experienced many difficult issues with our relationship (especially sexually) and later on having reflected, we almost see this as the consequence of our sin. We knew God had forgiven us, but realized that there is always a cost to sin. But through it all God was so faithful in helping us along. We were so young and hard-headed in many areas of our lives; pride always poked its head up when something went wrong.

As we got older and the years went on we came to realise the importance of constant communication with each other, but most importantly with our God. As we came to recognise this and put it into practice we felt God working in our lives, helping us along. We were blessed with 3 beautiful daughters, our family life settled down and we enjoyed teaching them about the love our Lord Jesus Christ. This didn’t mean that everything was just “peachy” and there were no troubles (believe you me there were many) but we got through it with the constant help of God’s Word and His Spirit.

Now the three girls are married to wonderful men who love God. Two of the couples are in full time ministry and the others are serving in high schools with mentoring and counselling young people according to God’s standards. Deon and I look back and marvel at God’s provision in our lives over these 28 years. Those early years were rocky. I can remember Deon walking out one night, and I lay crying on my bed wondering if it would ever work; whether we were going to be just another statistic. I am very pleased and grateful to say, NO We didn’t turn out to be just another statistic. God has molded us into a wonderfully happy, contented and blessed couple.

We LOVE being together as we have become BEST FRIENDS. We nurtured our relationship while the children were at home by going out on “dates” regularly, not elaborate as there was no money for that, but we were creative and enjoyed each other’s company; finding things that we had in common. I really do believe this has helped us, as now that there are no children in the house (except when our precious grand-daughter visits) it’s ok, because WE enjoy being together. We travel all over the country exploring and visiting with the kids and just generally have fun together (The operative word is TOGETHER – we don’t live individualistic lives). We try not to get stuck in ruts of doing things “just because” this is what you must do at your age (which, I must add, is still fairly young as we got married when I was 18 years old). We have a WONDERFUL marriage and we look forward to what the Lord has in store for us in the years He gives us.

Never take for granted that you have a “perfect or happy marriage”, marriage takes work! HARD work! But it’s SO worth it. My favorite saying to our friends and children is: “It just gets betterer and betterer”, because we never imagined that after 28 years we could be having so much fun together as a couple.

[To read the new post on the 33rd year of marriage with Jo and Ollie Prentice, click here]