April Love is actually a song and a movie that came out in 1957, when love and marriage were a bit more simple, seemingly more innocent, maybe what our hearts long for today.  (If I knew how, I’d have you play the song while reading this particular blog post… maybe you can hum it… or play it on your phone…  “April Love…. ”  So sweet…)

Steve’s parents were married in 1956 in Evansville, IN, and enjoyed 60 years as man and wife before Steve’s dad went home to heaven last spring.   Theirs was a marriage of deep love and honor and serving each other.  How much we learned from them!!

My parents were married in 1962 in Gas City, IN.  My dad was fresh out of college and my mom was 18.  Yes, 18 years old.  They’ve been married 55 years, and still inspire us every day to love hard, laugh hard, and lay down our lives as they have done for each other… and their kids.  How we long to love well as they do.

My Dad’s parents on the right were married in a farmhouse near Fairmount, IN, in 1937.  They were married 60 years.  Bob and Anna lived through WWII with my Grandfather being far away for over 2 years when my dad was little, leaving my Grandmother to raise two little boys by herself while he was gone.  We still have postcards he wrote home to them; and he could never talk about it without crying.   Perseverance.  Hard Work. Commitment.  Faithfulness.  Oh, we learned so much from their deep love for each other.

My Mom’s parents were married in 1930 in Upland, IN, and they were married 58 years.  My grandfather was the choir director/worship leader, and my grandmother the organist, at the same church – for over 40 years…   40 years.  Commitment.  Loyalty.  Faith.  Service.  Strong love.   Jesus.  We learned so very much from them.

“Freely you have received;  freely give.”  Matthew 10: 8

“. . .what we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us.  We will not hide them from our children;  we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord, about his power and his mighty wonders.”

“. . . For he gave his instructions to Israel.  He commanded our ancestors to teach them to their children, so the next generation might know them – even the children not yet born- and they in turn will teach their own children.”

“So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands.”   Psalm 78: 3-7

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.  Impress them on your children.  Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on your doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”  Dueteronomy 6: 4-8

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.  For wives, this means being devoted to your husbands like you are tenderly devoted to our Lord . . . and to the husbands, you are to demonstrate love for your wives with the same tender devotion that Christ demonstrated to us, his bride.”   Ephesians 5: 21-22, 25

“. . . older women . . . train the younger women to love their husbands and children, and to be self-controlled and pure, taking care of their household and being devoted to their husbands. . . . ” Titus 2: 3-4

We are so grateful.    We are so thankful for 30 years of friendship and love and marriage.   We are beyond thankful for our parents and their parents and all who came before them . . . who laid down their lives for one another, and persevered, and worked hard, and fought hard and laughed hard . . .  and loved well.

Freely we have received.  We have simply been recipients of that which others before us prayed into, fought for, and stayed faithful through- to pass down to us.

Freely we must give.  And so we say to you, our children and our spiritual kids and our premarital couples….  Pray hard.  Fight hard.  Laugh hard.

And love well.

And if you out there reading this did not have generations before you to pass down the ways of the Lord and the truth and training about life and love and marriage,  do not let the enemy steal from your family line any longer.   There is a call on you and your family line as well.   It may have been lost for a while,  maybe hidden for a few generations;  but there is a call.  And there is a purpose and generational blessing that is still yours for the reclaiming!!   Start today!   Build your house upon the Lord and His ways!   Submit yourselves to each other and to Jesus,  and then teach your children to do the same!  Reclaim your generation and begin a legacy today that will be passed on from generation to generation.  You can be the one.    You can be the ones to start it for your family today.

Freely we have received.  Freely we must give.    Kids – yes, all of you, pictured above or not – you know who you are….  and all of you who’ve received from our good Father:    Freely give what you’ve been given.  Pass it on.  Jesus is worth it all.