by: diane.connis@gmail.com
 Dear Marriage,
I get it. It’s hard sometimes.
You start out young, starry eyed, idealistic. You know exactly how you want this love to go forward and what it should look like. Then life gets in the way. The kids come. They grow. You work hard every day, keeping a roof overhead, food on the table. Responsibilities pile up. Another diaper to change. Another meal to make. Another bill to pay. Another illness. Another obstacle.
Health challenges or special needs add extra weight to this marathon. It’s heavy and all-consuming. Money, energy, time and patience often run short. And it seems the love has as well. The expectations are high and no one is meeting them exactly.
You weren’t aware that love was more choice than feeling, keeping it alive was such hard work and the sacrifices would be so huge. This hasn’t turned out the way you envisioned and you’ve forgotten why you did it in the first place. The days are routine. Mundane. Days turn into weeks. Weeks into months and months into years.
Then one day, suddenly, it’s over. One of you is gone. The other chair is empty, the bed lonely. There’s less clothes to fold, no one to talk to and the person you made history with, the one who knew you like no one else, doesn’t come home anymore. The final vow has come to collect and one of you is left to sift through the memories.
As the grief overwhelms and the great aloneness presses in, you realize all of life together was lived, not in the beginning or in this ending, but in the middle. In the mundane and in the routine. In the imperfection. In the stress and the joy. In the days that both dragged and flew by. Then you know without a doubt, you’d go back and do it over again if you had the chance. Love was far from perfect, and was sometimes buried beneath the constant challenge of everyday life, but it was there and it was good.
Remember Jesus, who loved the most and gave His all? He willingly offered the greatest grace. How can you not do the same?
Still somewhere in the middle? Be helpful. Be patient. Be prayerful. Find closeness and joy in the small moments. Persevere all the way to a no-regrets ending.
As you drown in tsunami waves of grief and sob through tears of unrelenting sorrow, a breath of joy will arise from that broken heart, a thankfulness that you didn’t give up on love, even when you couldn’t always see or feel it. You stayed. You endured all the way to the end.
And it was worth choosing. Every time.
Ecclesiastes 7:8 “The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.” Galatians 6:9 “Let is not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
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by: diane.connis@gmail.com
 He’s gone. Just like that. Suddenly. No suspicion. No warning. No alert. He came home from the office, changed his clothes, cleaned the pool, took the trash to the road. It was a typical day like any other. I left to do some errands and he was fine. When I came home my husband was dead. I wonder what it was like for him to be here alone, those last few minutes, when breath left his body. I wonder if I could have helped him or saved him somehow if I’d been home instead of wheeling a cart up and down store aisles trying to decide what we’d have for dinner next week. He was my partner in life. We depended on each other and I wasn’t there when he most needed me. And there was no way for either of us to know I needed to be. There was no way for us to know our life together was ending that day. There was no time to say goodbye. I don’t know how to process this. It haunts me in the night hours. I can’t stop thinking about it. Maybe I never will. It has changed me. Drastically. Do other’s look and see a sadder version of the same Diane? I‘m not the same. Something has shifted. On the inside, I don’t recognize myself. I‘m a totally different me. Time flies away. We live like there’s no tomorrow. We plan as if we’ll be here forever. But we won’t. The day finally comes when its over and we move on to eternity. Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that. James 4:13-15. Love like there’s no tomorrow. Do and say the things that need to be said everyday. Don’t live as if this is all there is. Live with eternity in mind, always, because we never know when we’ll have to say goodbye. Or if we’ll even have that chance.
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by: diane.connis@gmail.com
 I’m asked a lot these days, “How you doing?” I’m not sure if people want the standard answer or the real answer. I’m not even sure I know the answer. Trying to get through another day without my husband is pure agony. I still can’t believe he’s gone or that I’ll never again hear his familiar, “What’s up!” coming through the door at the end of a work day. As a staff pastor and the financial administrator at the church where he ministered and worked, he was somewhere in the building anytime I arrived there. If he wasn’t waiting for me, I could always find him. Trinity Church is and always will be associated with Mike in my heart and mind and it’s difficult for me to be there right now, because he’s not. Five Friday’s have come and gone since the evening he died. Friday was Mike’s day off. Our ‘date day’. Jon’s caregiver would come to the house in the early afternoon and we would leave for the day; go shopping, see a movie, eat out, spend time together. Our date days have ended. I don’t like Friday anymore. I have no ability to categorize any of this right now. It all swirls around in my head and becomes a wrecking ball of pain and sorrow for my heart. I try to fill up my days with tasks clamoring for my attention, those that used to be his and those that have always been mine. Evenings and nights stretch eternal and each morning sunrise is another reminder that I’ll live another day without him. I’m being told by so many I’m not alone. God is with me. I'm aware of this completely. He’s here in the middle of it all. I’ve sensed Him in my deepest sorrow, have not blamed Him for any of it and in some unexplainable way, I trust Him. But I still wear skin. My spirit exists in a physical body and world, one that involves taste, touch, sound and sight. I long for my partner with skin on, a man I could see, hear, touch, whose presence filled up my life and years. When God made the first human he said, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). He was right. It’s not. Yes, God is here. I’m not alone. But Mike is not and I’m so lonely. Just another life contradiction I don’t understand.
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by: diane.connis@gmail.com
 The first two promises Mike and I made to one another weren’t always easy to keep. We laughed, cried, fought, rejoiced, struggled, walked together and at times, far apart through "for better, for worse. In sickness and in health." Many years ago we stood at an altar and repeated, “Until death do us part.” I was a young, starry eyed, romantic, full of warm, fuzzy dreams of how my life would play out with the guy I loved. Those five words, stated so innocently, so glibly have now come full circle. “Until death do us part.” Forty two years later I’m experiencing the final vow. This one I get to keep without Mike by my side. That’s how it usually works. After decades of sloshing through the history of our life, one of us got to go. One got to stay. “Until death do us part.” My covenant promises to Michael Connis ended abruptly a few weeks ago. The last vow has been fulfilled. The stark, harsh reality of it has left me reeling, gasping, longing. But the living of it in between the “I Do” and this parting, I will never regret. The combining of two bodies, souls and spirits is a most wonderful, difficult thing. If you’re still privileged to be living between the first two vows and the last one - BE. ALL. IN. Love ferociously. Struggle determinedly. Give it all ya’ got until the final vow comes calling. In the deep grief of a broken heart and the loneliness of long, sleepless nights there will be a spark of joy in realizing you kept the promises. And it was worth it! Matthew 19:6 "So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."
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by: diane.connis@gmail.com
 I was barely twenty years old when Mike and I married on August 23, 1975. I confess now, though I didn’t think so then, I knew nothing of love. I was ‘in love’, but was unaware of the truth that love was not much in me. Love was all feeling. All desire. And so much about my personal happiness. Of course, I wanted to please Mike, make him happy and keep our love alive and growing, but I had no clue how the melding of two entirely different souls would forge and shape us. I had no idea the process would continuously be both marvelous and difficult, until our last breath. Over many years of marriage, I have failed all of love’s definitions. Every. Single. One. And have often prevailed in love’s opposites. After all this time, I have yet to perfect even one of these: Love is patient. Selfishness demands, “Now!” Love is kind. Selfishness retaliates. Love does not envy. Selfishness is discontent. Love does not boast. Selfishness demands recognition and approval. Love is not arrogant. Selfishness doesn't admit, “I am wrong.” Love is not rude. Selfishness must have the last word. Love does not insist on its own way. Selfishness says, “My way or the highway”. Love is not irritable. Selfishness has many moods. Love is not resentful. Selfishness is bitter and accusatory. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing. Selfishness retaliates. Love rejoices with the truth. Selfishness hides in lies. Love bears all things. Selfishness says, “I’ve had enough. I’m done!” Love believes all things. Selfishness cancels faith. Love hopes all things. Selfishness feasts on distrust and fear. Love endures all things. Selfishness builds walls of protection. Love never fails. Selfishness gives up and walks away. One year followed another and as time moved forward, my selfish heart awakened to the idea that love isn’t all about me. And the perception that I, in my own strength and by my human effort, could love as God loves, completely and unconditionally, is now banished. I desperately need His grace and help here. I am a work in progress. Always. Forty two years ago, two imperfect people merged to begin a journey of growth and improvement. Iron is sharpening iron and two are still becoming one, as we continue to practice what love should be. I have deep gratitude for my husband who steadfastly forgives and doesn’t give up on me, though my love has often failed. At this point, I think we understand a bit better, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” I pray a year from today, I’ll fail less at this love thing as our Love Never Fails learning continues. From~1 Corinthians 13:4-8 & 13 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh.” Mark 10:7-8 “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17
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by: diane.connis@gmail.com
"Can you believe it's been forty years?" I asked Mike.  "Yes and no." He answered. "It seems like yesterday and like a long time ago all at the same time." "When you've been married this long, people wonder what the secret is. People ask me that now? So what do you think it is - the secret to making it?" My husband said exactly what I've been thinking lately, "There's no big secret. It's hard work and a lot of showing up and not giving up" Our son, David, recently wrote a great song to his wife, Clara, for their fourth wedding anniversary titled, "Ornery Love". You can listen to it here. The word ornery doesn't typically have a positive connotation but one definition is, stubborn. I like the idea of using it to describe a long lasting marriage because an obstinate commitment to each other is what it takes to keep a marriage alive and growing in a culture that does everything possible to slaughter it. I'm thrilled our son and his wife are discovering this early on and hope both sets of parents, his and hers, have modeled ornery love well enough to be certain our kids will take the marriage journey from four anniversaries to forty and beyond, as we are doing now. We've done an incredible amount of ornery loving through our years of togetherness and by a miracle of God's grace we've never quit. August 23, 1975 - 2015! Happy, Ornery #40 to us. 1 Corinthians 13:7 “Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”
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