Congratulations to my brother and sister-in-law!

Today, December 24th, 2008 marks my brother Darryl Jackson and his wife Melody Jackson's 25th wedding anniversary! They are celebrating in Ashville, NC at the Biltmore estates. In a day where so many marriages end so quickly, it's great to see the success they've had in their marriage for so long. Of course we had great role models in our parents! They'll be celebrating 50 years in 2011.
Darryl and Melody got married at age 20 after only dating for a very short time. They had known each other off an on for quite a while, including having the same baby sitter at one time. Darryl was in the Navy stationed in Hawaii, and came home to visit when things took off between them. A few months later they were engaged, and till this day, Darryl says he gave Melody a 3 year honeymoon in Hawaii!

Short lenghts of dating seem to run in our family I guess as my mother and father only dated 3 months before getting engaged and then were married 3 months later. Oh how times have changed. Even my marriage started after a short time of dating. Lynn and I were engaged after 5 months of dating and married after 11 months of our first date. But, we'd known each other as well, previously by attending the same church.

Marriage should not be taken lightly in any way, and should be considered as one of the most important decisions you'll ever make in your life. As Christians, we must be certain that the person we're going to spend the rest of our lives with are Christians as well. I pray that God will give Darryl and Melody 25 more years together and that Lynn and I along with them can have marriages lasting 50 years, as a testimony to our faithfulness to one another, and commitment we made on our wedding days. That's what Marriage is, right? A commitment between a man and woman to cling to one another till death departs them. In a world now where close to half of marriages end in divorce, and even the term "marriage" itself is up for debate as to what it means in our society, I feel the need to celebrate how marriage has been modeled in my family by my parents and brother. I pray Lynn and I will have many years to come in our marriage.
"For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh." Genesis 2:24