I suppose it is quite fitting that the occasion of my tenth
wedding anniversary would coincide with Thanksgiving Day. As I realized that just a week ago, I
ruminated on how significant and appropriate it was on so many levels. Also, not by coincidence, I am taking a
course on Civil War history. So as I
contemplated the history of the Civil War and the history of the National Day
of Thanksgiving, I found the parallels between my marriage and this day’s
history to be striking and apropos.
Thanksgiving as a national
observance started in 1863 when President Lincoln issued a declaration ordering
the last Thursday in November to be a National Day of Thanksgiving. 1863 had seen significant Union war progress
and was viewed as a strategic turning point for the Federal effort in the traumatizing
American Civil War. After the disasters
of two routing defeats at Manassas Junction, a humiliating retreat from the Virginia
Peninsula, and further leadership failures at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville,
the Federal cause in the early Spring of 1863 seemed doomed. But the dramatic turns of events of July 1863
in the decisive victory at Gettysburg and the capture of Vicksburg gave hope to
the Union cause. Within this historic backdrop,
Lincoln issued his declaration, giving thanks to God for His love and mercies
bestowed upon the nation.
Similarly, in my life, I have had countless failures in my
marriage. At so many times in the past
ten years, nothing but God’s kind providence and gracious love to me has kept
my marriage together. In the past three
years, He has seen fit to demonstrate that my wife’s and my bonds of commitment
to each other are unbreakable… bendable, and subject to remaining sin, but
unbreakable. In this context, I view our
past ten years from the perspective of November 1863, and indeed give thanks
for God’s mercy upon us.
Of course, the year 1864 offers other parallels in my
metaphor. 1864 has been remembered as
the year that saw Lincoln’s reelection, essentially sealing the fate of the
Confederacy from a standpoint of political willpower. It saw the triumph of Sherman in
Atlanta. But 1864 was also the year in
which the Union suffered their most casualties due to the dogged, stubborn,
persistent attacks by Grant’s Army in the eastern theater of action. It saw the confused, fiery, terrifying combat
in the Wilderness. It saw the whole-sale
slaughter of Spotsylvania Courthouse. It
saw the Fredericksburg-like disaster at Cold Harbor. It saw the depressing trench-warfare siege of
Petersburg. Yet, despite these trials, Thanksgiving
Day was celebrated by these Union soldiers on the last day of November
1864. The civilians of the North,
grateful for the tremendous cost and sacrifice poured out by their boys in
blue, generously provided the entrenched units at Petersburg with a trueThanksgiving feast… incidentally exposing many to northeast staples like roast
turkey and cranberries for the first time.
Thanksgiving was given to God for His aid and succor throughout that
difficult year.
As I celebrate my ten years of marriage on this first Day of
National Thanksgiving that coincides with said wedding anniversary, I consider
the metaphor of the future years of 1864 in my wife’s and my life together. We will doubtless encounter our own
Wilderness… beset by enemies and terrors unseen. We will certainly feel lost and hopeless in
the tangle of those thickets and may entertain tempting thoughts that God has
abandoned us. We will doubtless encounter
terror and fear, facing difficult, heavy entrenchments at our own “Bloody
Angles”, having to dutifully fulfill Biblical orders to take the position
despite how much it costs us. We will
doubtless face complete defeats when we, in our own arrogance and
self-confidence, charge towards objectives without the assistance of God and be
severely defeated in our own Cold Harbors.
We will most assuredly encounter objectives too difficult to take on our
own and be forced to besiege our own Petersburgs, dependent upon the assistance
of Almighty God for victory… which may not come for months or years. And lastly, we will doubtless encounter the
grace and mercies of the benevolence of our brothers and sisters in Christ who
will provide the mentorship, counsel, and provisions that will strengthen our
marriage and our resolve to see the struggle to our own Appomattox.
My Schatz (German for “treasure”), I love you more than ever
before in these previous ten years. Most
of them have been difficult, and most secular counselors would have counted us
as loss on more than one occasion. Yet
your love and commitment to me has only gown and strengthened our love. Your ability to forgive has been a mirror of God’s
unconditional love in forgiving me. I
find strength to face my own besetting sins in that I know I don’t have to do
anything to earn your love… but I do it because I love you. Love is an action… and not an emotion. I pray for you and our children daily and I
thank God every day… not just today… for His giving you to me, and me to you.
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