Gratitude and Grief at the Same Table

🕯️ It's our anniversary, and I'm reminded of an old photograph from thirty-four years ago: a young bride with ruffled sleeves and pink roses spilling from her arms, a young groom smiling beside her as though the whole world had just opened its doors. We had no idea then what the years would hold. We only knew we were choosing each other, with God at the centre of the cord.

Clive and I had been looking forward to celebrating thirty-four years of marriage in Queenstown on our annual anniversary vacation. He had lovingly planned precious time together for us, a chance to step away from our responsibilities, simply enjoy each other's company and make beautiful new memories. I'd been carrying that getaway in my heart like a little wrapped gift, waiting for the day to open it.

✍️ Instead, these past days have held the frightening moment of watching him collapse, the long uncertainty of medical assessments and the quiet unpacking of cancelled plans. Since then, he hasn't felt well enough for us to even enjoy simple activities near our home together. If I'm honest, and I want to be honest here, we feel robbed. That's a genuine loss, even though I'm deeply grateful that Clive is still beside me, and I don't want to rush past it with a tidy smile.

🕊️ The Holy Spirit has been gently teaching me something this week: gratitude and disappointment can sit at the same table. One doesn't cancel out the other. I can thank God with my whole heart for preserving my husband's life, while still grieving the anniversary celebration we had so lovingly anticipated. Both can be true at once, like two cups of tea poured side by side, one warm with thankfulness, the other carrying the salt of tears.

This morning I wrote Clive a little anniversary message, and one line has stayed with me ever since:

"Our anniversary getaway may have been stolen from us this year, yet nothing can steal what we've built together."

That sentence holds both truths in one breath. It honours the disappointment without letting it have the final word, and it honours the enduring love without pretending the loss didn't happen.

🪨 I think of kintsugi, the art of mending broken pottery with gold. The cracks aren't hidden or sanded away; they're honoured. Our marriage is a vessel like that. Thirty-four years of seasons have left their lines: hard conversations, tired days, answered prayers, unanswered questions and so much grace poured into the gaps. This anniversary is simply another seam, and I'm trusting the Master Potter to fill it with gold.

📖 "Through the LORD's mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness." — Lamentations 3:22–23 (NKJV)

New every morning, even this morning. Not the morning I imagined, waking to mountain views and a slow breakfast in Queenstown, but a morning where my husband is still breathing beside me, still here to hold my hand. His mercy is in that.

✍️ Another line from my message to Clive keeps returning to me: "Through good and bad, in sickness and in health, across mountaintops and through valleys, you've held my hand and held steady." Those aren't simply wedding vows remembered thirty-four years later. They're vows we're living right now, in this very season, in this very house. The young bride in that photograph spoke them with roses in her arms; the woman I am today is learning what they truly cost and how beautiful they truly are.

Perhaps that's what moves me most. I'm not pretending this anniversary has been wonderful. I'm declaring that our marriage is wonderful, even when the circumstances aren't. I don't have to make this day sound happier than it's been in order to celebrate the extraordinary gift of thirty-four years together.

🌱 Sometimes love looks like champagne and a beautiful getaway. Other times, it looks like sitting beside someone who isn't well enough to celebrate, quietly thanking God that you still have each other. Love is a feather resting on a weary shoulder, a glass of water carried to the bedside, a whispered prayer over a sleeping face.

Both are love. Both are marriage. Both are worth honouring.

So today I choose him again, just as I did in that little church with roses in my arms, and as I'll keep doing every day the Lord gives us. Doing life with Clive is an absolute blessing and one of God's sweetest gifts to me. My hope, held gently in open hands, is that when he's well enough, we'll get to reclaim some of that precious time together. Until then, the celebration can wait; the love doesn't have to. 💞