and they're still together

My parents are celebrating their 34th wedding anniversary tomorrow (or is it 33rd) and I wasn't sure if I would get on tomorrow to post a big congrats to them!

And a big big thanks for sticking by each other all these years. I know that things weren't always easy, but you two loved each other and supported each other through everything. The two things that I treasure most that my parents gave me is a childhood first rooted in faith and commitment to God and then in family. From a very early age, I learned by example what it means to love one another in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as in sorrow.

I guess I am feeling especially sentimental because E and I watched Fireproof this weekend. Albeit, the acting wasn't fabulous, but the message really was, there is no way around that. I think I had a lump in my throat the whole movie because it really brought it home that NO marriage is infallible. Its just not. Marriage can be downright hard sometimes. It is guaranteed that there will be times of sorrow, of strain and difficulties, because that's just life. Marriage is the gift that God gives us to get through those times. I always took for granted that my parents stayed married because that's what you are supposed to do. But marriage can be hard, regardless if you love each other or are Christians. It takes a personal understanding of God's love for us to really be able to love each other the way God intended. I am so much more appreciative of the commitment and love that my parents have for each other now that I am older and married myself.

PS- Isn't Kirk Cameron the best? My childhood crush just got moved back into the spotlight because I just read where he said on the Today Show "I have a commitment not to kiss any other woman." To get around this in the movie, his real wife, Chelsea Noble, stood in for his movie wife during the kissing scene. I mean, as if Kirk Cameron himself isn't enough to make any 30 year old girl swoon like she did when she was 10, he has to go and say something like this. I just wish I still had those wall posters of him because I would totally hang them up in my room right now.