best 10 dollars

This weekend I officiated a beautiful, well-attended wedding.  Two attractive young people, relieved to have months of choosing florists and tuxes over, were happy and sparkly.  They stood in a candle lit gazebo in front of their family and friends and promised           
     for better or for worse, for richer, or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish, forsaking all others, for as long as we both shall live.


The next day I sat in a trailer sunk into the side of a gravel road.   A husband sat by his wife's hospital bed.  He talked about her cancer and the lines on his face deepened. And then he reminisced.


"We've been married 50 years.  51 in December.  We went to the courthouse one Saturday.  Just her, me, our moms and the judge. Paid him ten dollars."  


"Did you dress up?" I had to ask.  He laughed.  "Wore the best we had.  Don't know that i'd call it dressing up."  He stroked her forehead and tucked a gray hair behind her ear.  She didn't stir.  He took her hand again.


"I'll tell you what.  Best 10 dollars I ever spent."
     for better or for worse, for richer, or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish, forsaking all others, for as long as we both shall live.


I think that qualifies as a solid I do.


Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:7