PLATINUM

   

  I've reported many times on this page that our congregation enjoys any excuse to celebrate and eat cake.  Well, Sunday morning we did it again but this time the excuse was rare and wonderful.  Doris and Royce McKinnon are celebrating 70, (that's 7-0! )years of marriage.  The milestone is so unusual I had to look up what to call it.  The answer is platinum.  Apparently that's the mineral considered more precious than diamonds.
     In my view, a marriage that has survived and thrived and nurtured its members for so long is more precious than diamonds or platinum.  As Proverbs 31 puts it: a good wife is more valuable than rubies.  The heart of her husband may safely trust in her.  She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.

    In its own pithy way, the Book of Proverbs has quite a lot to say about marriage. Proverbs 18:22 (KJV) Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord.
  Or even  It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife Proverbs 25:24
    Although Proverbs uses the pejorative for the wife, I'd venture to say a quarrelsome husband would be just as unpleasant.
 
    We live in a culture that worships celebrity and often those in the news are marrying, divorcing, and marrying again.  The committment of one man and one woman seems to have an expiry date.  Five years is considered long term.  Thus we rejoice in the example of Doris and Royce.  Surely they are a living example of
Genesis 2: 18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper.”
Or Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.  For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!
   Of course, there is no greater paean to the power of love than 1Corinthians 13: 4-8
 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant  or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.Love never ends. But if there are prophecies, they will be set aside; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be set aside.

    Thank you, Royce and Doris, for  giving us an excuse to eat cake and for being a living example of marriage as God intended it to be.





















King James Version (KJV)





















24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.