January 15, 2009

Today is my wedding anniversary. How many years? Forty-four.

These days I am seen as a dinosaur, especially by some of my media peers, some of whom have been married and divorced more than once.

A stable marriage these days is in large part due to the grace of God. It is also about taking seriously a covenant. Marriage today is treated as one of many choices and not necessarily the best one. Yet all of the evidence – from scripture, to common sense to sociological studies – has validated that getting married before one has children and staying married is the best choice one can make.

I remember something the actor Ricardo Maltaban once told me. He was married to the same woman for more than fifty years. He said every marriage has a large bump in it and if you get over that bump, things work out. He said at the time, he loved his wife more now than when he married her.

My wife has been through a rough year physically. She is slowly on the mend. The experience has brought us closer together and closer to God. What could be a better anniversary present than that?

Cal Thomas is a syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.