When we were first dating, my husband and I used to take day trips together. Often, we built the day around a drive to a used bookstore, where we could spend hours, scanning the covers and spines of books and maybe choosing a few to take home.
We still enjoy going to used bookstores, although there are fewer around. The other day, though, we decided to drive to one outside Washington, D.C. Before we climbed into the car with our sons, John and I scanned our shelves at home to see whether we had any books we wanted to pass along to the store.
I pointed to one book on the bookcase I had forgotten. “I could let that one go,” I said. “I haven’t read it in years.”
“Are you sure?” John said, and he slid it off the shelf and opened it. Sometimes there’s an autograph or a special note from a friend. This time, there was nothing written on the first pages. Instead, an old photo of us fluttered to the floor.
I picked up the picture, and we stood there looking at it together – marveling at this image of our former selves, taken during the early days of our marriage. We are dancing, so it must have been taken at a wedding. But whose? And when? And where?
We might never figure that out. But I was struck by how young and carefree the couple in the photo looked, happy as can be, not a gray hair in sight, just dancing the night away together.
What did that young couple know, I thought, of the years that lay ahead? What did they understand about being married and creating a family and raising children and balancing work and extended families and all the busyness to come?
Their marriage vows were real and true, but “for better or for worse” seemed hypothetical. They could not have guessed what the years ahead held. They didn’t care. They were together, and they were in love.
That was enough for them. And it is enough for us today. But it struck me what a gift it is that we don’t know all that the future holds. Life is better taken a step at a time, navigating it as it comes, rather than worrying about what tomorrow might bring.
Sometimes I think of the Blessed Virgin Mary and how when St. Gabriel asked her to be the Mother of God, she might have had a sense of what she was saying yes to. But her “yes” still required an enormous leap of faith. I marvel at her depth of faith and her absolute trust and obedience to God.
We do not know what struggles and suffering lie ahead. We cannot guess what wonders and joys tomorrow holds. All we can be certain of is that life will hold joy and sorrow, struggles and celebrations, turbulence and peace. And so, we, too, step forward in faith, knowing God will be with us through whatever comes. We will bring what we need to every situation because he will make sure we have what we need.
“Lay all your cares about the future trustingly in God’s hands and let yourself be guided by the Lord just like a little child,” St. Edith Stein tells us.
That naïve young married couple didn’t know what lay ahead. After 18 years of marriage, they still don’t. But as I look at that photo from what feels like so long ago, it’s so clear to me that God has been accompanying us on our journey – just as he walks with everyone through the trials and victories of our everyday lives.
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