Wedding Ministry by Design

Foundations for Marriage

Beautiful Young Bride

I don't know if this story will help anyone to build a stronger marriage, but it is a true event that happened to me that I have thought of often and would like to share. 

Many years ago, in the 1970's, I was driving across Kansas on a rather desolate highway in the middle of nowhere, when I came upon an elderly couple on the side of the road with a flat tire. Back in those days, when someone had car trouble, people stopped to help. Can you imagine? Well, of course I stopped to help, and that is when I saw the couple for the first time. They had to both be well into their eighties. I quickly saw that they had a flat tire and immediately set about changing it for them. The old man shook my hand and introduced himself, though sadly, his name has been long forgotten, but not the deep influence he had upon me and my life. 

After introducing himself, I was determined to attack the task at hand, but he was insistent that I meet his "beautiful young bride". She had remained in the car and so when I stepped to her door, he introduced her and of course, she expressed her deep gratitude at my stopping to help her and her "dashing husband". Upon hearing these accolades they bestowed on one another, I determined they must have been blessed with finding one more chance at love after the loss of their earlier loved ones, so I asked the gentleman, after he had referred several more times to his "beautiful young bride" just how long they had been married. With love beaming from his sparkling eyes, he informed me, "I married my beautiful bride sixty-three years ago!"  I was taken aback at the deep adoration this couple still so freely displayed after 63 years together. 

All too quickly, the flat tire was replaced and we all went on about our way, but what I saw in that precious old couple has lived with me ever since. When I got back into my own car, all I could think of was how much in love these two people were. I wish every married couple in the world could have spent just a few minutes in the presence of that couple, to see just how much they truly loved and admired each other, and to witness just how wonderful marriage can be if you make it so.

Though I am certain, like all married couples, they had difficulties in their marriage, but they had obviously never let those difficulties define what their marriage was or what they meant to one another. They must have thanked me a dozen times for changing their tire, but I could never have thanked them enough for the gift they gave me. That gift was hope. Hope that one day, I would be able to look back at my life and know the kind of joy they had found in one another.

Then and there, as I drove down that deserted Kansas highway, I asked God to somehow find a person that would always remain to me, "my beautiful young bride". He did, and she is. 

Monty Rainey

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