This past weekend ended with my wife and I attending the wedding of a friend.  It was a beautiful wedding, simple, elegant, pure.  There were tears of joy, of laughter, and the very beginning of a brand new story.  The wedding was what all weddings should be, wonderful.

During the reception we were blessed to sit with a husband and wife in their 50’s.  A couple, old enough to be our parents.  And they have an absolute lifetime full of stories to tell.  The evening was quickly filled with stories of redemption, of second marriages and second chances for them both, and freedom from more than a decade of drug use.

But what stood out the most was that they were still in love.  Madly in love.  Sharing whispers and quiet looks, holding hands and laughing.  You could just tell.  They were just as in love now, as they were when they tied the not.  And as they approach their retirement years, it was very obvious that there is more life and energy in them now than at any other time they’ve been alive.

The love they have for each other was beautiful.

I was humbled, and almost brought to tears.

Because I want that.  For me, for my beautiful bride.  For us.

I want to be the type of man who will be more in love with his bride in 20 years than he is now.  I want to be the type of man who steals a glance and looks longingly at her from across the room when I’m 52.  I want to be the type of man whose wife never doubts his love for her.

And part of me is afraid that I cannot be that type of man.  Afraid because I never had that man as a father.

But I cannot hide there, in my circumstances.  Yes, the fact is, my father was never the man he should have been. But I will not be defined by the path my father forged.  I am fully capable of forging my own.

Beyond the fact that my earthly father may not have been there for me lies a truth I cannot ignore, my Heavenly Father was.

I know, it sounds like some pat answer, like I’m hiding behind my religion.  I’m not.  Because when I say those words, I don’t say them lightly.  Those words carry weight because I can testify to the love I’ve seen from my Heavenly Father.

And it is that love, it is because of that love that I will forge my own path.

And I will be the man I want to be, the man my wife deserves.