True TRUE Love

I've titled a post 'True Love' once before, but this occasion calls for that... and then some:

Today is my parents' 30th wedding anniversary! THIRTY years! Can you believe it?? And even after those 10,950 days, they're still madly, deeply, completely in love. True true love.

In a world that sees too many marriages end in heartbreak, my mom and dad have spent the last three decades learning what it means to write their very own 'Happily Ever After.' I'm not naive enough to imply that it's been all roses and sunshine for them, because that's just not how real relationships in real life work...

... But they met, and they fell in love. True love. They realized that God hadn't just brought a young East Coast girl all the way to Montana on a whim... And eventually they both figured out that neither one of them would ever be complete, be their very best, without the other. Since then, they've grown together, raised a family together. They've learned what it means to

respect, trust and truly love another person with everything you have. A love like theirs... It can overcome anything that real life throws their way.

My sister and I count ourselves among the luckiest to have grown up with this seemingly unreal example of what marriage is supposed to be... To one day look back on life and realize that I've lived more days with the man I love than I've lived without him? That is love. True true love.

Happy 30th Anniversary Mom and Daddy! And here's to 30 more...

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

-1 Corinthians 13: 4-8