Joshua and I have been married for eight years today. I’d like to say we’ve learned a lot about marriage, family, and each other in that time. And we have. But I still think we’ve got a lot to learn. It’s easy for me to think, “Wow! Eight years is a long time!” It is, I guess. Until I look at the marriages he and I both admire the most.
We are both blessed to still have one set of grandparents each. His mother’s, my father’s. Both sets married their childhood sweethearts. All of them grew up during the Great Depression and WWII. They started their married lives during the fifties and raised children alongside Flower Power and Vietnam. They gave their families everything and are blessed now to live in homes they own because they understood budgets and finance before Dave Ramsey. Between them they have twelve grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren and they share the three sweetest: Madelynne, Annabelle, and Amelia.
Each set has been married for at least sixty years, but has known their partner for nearly eighty. That is ten times how long Joshua and I have been married. And we only knew each other for two years before. Suddenly, eight years just seems like a drop in the bucket. I hope and pray that we’ll reap the blessings of our grandparents. To sit on the front porch of a home I truly own, to have grandchildren crawling across my lap to his, to know he loves me more now than he did on July 20, 2002 will be the ultimate anniversary.
Eight years is just the beginning of our marriage. There is so much wonder yet to come.
Lindsey P. Brackett 
you know that testimony your grandparents' marriages have been? well, eight years may not seem like that long, but every moment of it will be a similar testimony to your three girls. I have one living grandparent who just turned 90 and is on his second marriage of 20+ years (he outlived his first wife). And thank God for two sets of grandparents for our two boys. Aren't we blessed to have those sort of examples as well…especially these days?! thanks for reminding me to be thankful for the long marriages that have gone before us and realize the impact ours must have on future generations.
Happy Anniversary!
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