Invitation to Love

My husband and I celebrated 35 years of marriage yesterday! We drove up to a quiet dinner at a great restaurant in the foothills just outside Boulder to celebrate.

I feel blessed! One day at a time, we have built a life together. And now I can’t imagine my life without my husband and friend.

Here is something I wrote for my youngest daughter’s wedding. It was fitting for her and her husband on their wedding day. It is also fitting for my husband and I after all these years.

Invitation to Love

By Marlene Depler

To love and be loved—this is one of our greatest human
needs.

The God who is defined by love is the God who invites us to
both.

He first invites us to open our hearts to his love.

From that fullness, he invites us to live in love.

When we express love, we reflect the love of our Creator.

Love is His imprint on our hearts.

Marriage is a lifetime commitment to God’s invitation of love.

In this sacred union, we choose to open our hearts to receive
the love that is offered and determine to give an unending love.

Love will not look the same today as it will tomorrow or next
year, yet a commitment is made to nurture that love and to fall in love with
each other over and over again.

Two lives joined in the context of love have greater potential
together than individually.

The constancy, comfort, and compassion of marriage provide a
nurturing environment allowing freedom to experience personal growth.

Love releases us to fully live life.

Love costs everything, and yet in the process we are not
diminished.

Love doesn’t give up in time of difficulty or
inconvenience.

Love allows for two to walk hand in hand even when they don’t
always see eye to eye.

Love allows us to share our hopes and dreams, joys and sorrows,
success and failure with another.

Love finds expression not just in words, but in consistent
actions and attitudes.

We are invited to love, not to possess.

We are invited to support and encourage, not to
control.

We are invited to care without smothering.

We are invited to comfort without minimizing each other’s
pain.

Love invites each heart to make its home beneath its wide
branches.

At the end of life’s journey, little else matters more than
those we have loved and those who have loved us.

(c)2004 Marlene Depler