This past weekend my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. After spending forty-five years experiencing  their marriage, and twenty-four years of my own wedded bliss, I’ve come to the conclusion that love is a gift. Not a choice. Not a chemical reaction. And certainly not the natural result of sticking two people in bed together for LIFE.

In Christian circles, I keep hearing love is a choice. I just don’t agree. Staying together is a choice. Staying in love is a gift. And the giver of all good gifts is God, states James 1:17. It is God who gives love, not good intentions, not emotional elbow grease, and not great couples’ counseling.

After all my parents have been through, it amazes me Mom and Dad are still in love, with a marriage stronger than ever. Twenty-five years ago, I feared they would kill each other. Dad was in the throes of a major mid-life crisis, parking his pickup and purchasing a yellow corvette, speeding along the destruction of his marriage. Mom armed herself with her faith and a frying pan. I remember kneeling beside Mom in church, watching tears roll down her face as she prayed to keep loving my dad, and for him to still love her.

In the middle of my dad’s midlife crisis, I left home for college. One night, I called my parents. They were in a roaring fight and fear gripped me when I spoke with them. They sounded in furious despair. In my pajamas, I drove three hours home through the mountains and the night to find them still at war in the valley. “I’m going to sleep. Please stop fighting and go to bed, too,” I begged, walking in the door, and past them to collapse in my girlhood room. I figured with me there they would calm down and not do each other in.

Two shotgun blasts awoke me at dawn. I crashed out of bed, terrified they’d done it. Jogging downstairs to their bedroom was the longest run of my life. My heart roared in my ears as I stepped into their room. I didn’t call out their names, why bother? I thought they were dead.

Their bed was empty, but not bloody as I had envisioned. The room proved barren, too. Cool air whirled through the open sliding glass door that led to their back patio where I found my dad wearing his whitey-tighty Fruit of the Loom underwear and cowboy boots, a shotgun gripped in his hands. “What are you doing out here with your gun?” I asked, struggling to breathe.

“Shooting a #$%&* flicker that was pecking on the house.”

“Where’s mom?” I asked suspiciously.

“She got called into the hospital. What are you doing up so early?”

Relief rioted through me. Mom was a surgical nurse and getting called into work was not out of the ordinary. Dad shooting at woodpeckers was normal as well. But I was so mad at both of them for putting me through this, I refused to answer him. Still in my pajamas, I drove back over the mountains to college, and miraculously made it to my morning class. My parents’ marriage miraculously made it, too.

My own marriage has been no less of a miracle.

I don’t believe my parents’ fifty years was self-generated, or gritted out of a human commitment to stick together. I believe that precious time my mom spent on her knees funneled God’s love into their relationship. My guess is Dad did some praying of his own.

The Bible says we love each other because God loved us first. 1 John 4:19 NLT. We don’t create love, God does. If you find yourself short on love today, ask God to pour His love into your heart. Pour His love into your relationships. Pour His love into your life.

Dad, Mom, and Cruz