I was reading a gossip magazine a few months ago, and an actress was talking about her recent engagement.
“Oh, I hope I don’t sound too soppy,” she gushed. “But I really do believe that he and I are meant to be… at this point in our lives.”
OUCH. At this point in our lives? Whatever happened to Happily Ever After?
I suppose you could argue that in Hollywood where more than the national average of 50% of marriages bite the dust, that she was just being pragmatic, but it’s still sad. When a bride-to-be looks forward to her wedding already expecting an expiry date, something has gone wrong.
My aunt told me about a wedding she attended where the vows sounded like this:
“I take you to be my lawfully wedding husband, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, for as long as we both shall wish it.”
The idea of a marriage that lasts for a lifetime is fading in some circles, and I find that truly heartbreaking. I believe in marriage that lasts. I believe in loving one person for the rest of my life. I believe that we should stay true to each other in sickness, health, poverty, or wealth, but I’m not relying on my own ideals or on my husband’s love for me. I’m relying on God.
Happily Ever After is only happy when it truly lasts, and I believe that all of us want that, deep down. We want someone to love us unconditionally, to protect us, to adore us. While a husband may fall short of the ideal from time to time, God never does. And when God is in that marriage, in that relationship and in that Happily Ever After, it lasts.
Not for only a point in our lives.
Not for as long as we both shall wish it.
But for a lifetime.
Blurb:
When a baby is dropped into her life without warning, Emily Shaw is overjoyed. It’s a bit odd that her distant cousin named single Emily as guardian, but she’s thrilled all the same. She never thought she’d get to be a mom. Another unexpected blessing is that baby Cora arrives in the arms of police chief Greg Taylor. Despite all three of them instantly bonding, Greg has promised himself he’ll never be a father. And now Emily’s smooth-talking relative is challenging her right to raise Cora. Will Emily have to make an impossible decision between the child she already loves and the man who loves her?
Patricia Johns lives in Alberta, Canada, where the winters are long and cold. She doesn’t complain, though, because it leaves her plenty of time to write, enjoying that winter wonderland from the warm side of the window.
She has her BA in English Lit and has been writing seriously ever since. She has written numerous novels in other genres, but her true love is for romance writing, where she can be the unabashedly hopeless romantic she’s always been.