Terry: Hard work, understanding keep love alive

— 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NIV)

Five years ago I used the scripture above to fashion a column for Valentine’s Day. I held the verse up to my own relationship with my wife. Half a decade later I can say I’ve made progress but I’m not perfect.

Karl Terry

Patience was one of my big shortcomings when I wrote that column and it still is to a great degree but God has given me some big lessons in patience in the last five years, especially where my lovely bride is concerned.

Things can get rough really quickly when serious health concerns arise but weathering through those tough times brings a peace in the relationship that simply can’t be understood or explained until you’ve gone through the dark tunnel and emerged with her hand still tightly clasping yours.

How can God use hard times to make a couples love even stronger? I don’t understand it, I just know it can happen if you stay devoted to each other and work hard at the relationship in both good and bad times.

I once interviewed a couple on their 75th anniversary. They had built their home years ago on the banks of the Crystal River in Colorado. I know that sounds too romantic and made up but it’s a real place and they had put years into improving the property and operating a dude ranch there.

I knew the couple and their children casually from church but I didn’t know their complete story until that day. It took a long time for them to get to the banks of the Crystal River together. She wasn’t too taken with him at first and once they married they had good times and bad in business before they moved to Colorado.

The thing I remember most about that interview, however, was when the old man caught me for a minute without his bride in the room and told me flat out that it took a lot of hard work and a lot of understanding to make love last for 75 years.

In a Valentine’s letter I wrote once to my wife talked about a quote from the movie “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” in which it talks about the explosiveness of new romance, and how once that’s over a decision has to be made.

“You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.”

I thank God that I’ve found myself in the same boat as the character St. Augustine in that movie. Our roots have grown together, the pretty blossoms have fallen away and we’ve found that we are one tree and not two.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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