In honor of my son’s and daughter in law’s wedding anniversary and a celebration of love and marriage for all, I’ve compiled a collection of quotes that are especially meaningful to me. 
If you want something to last forever, you treat it differently. You shield it and protect it. You never abuse it. You don’t expose it to the elements. You don’t make it common or ordinary. If it ever becomes tarnished, you lovingly polish it until it gleams like new. It becomes special because you have made it so, and it grows more beautiful and precious as time goes by. ~ F. Burton Howard
Marriage is about becoming a team. You’re going to spend the rest of your life learning about each other, and every now and then, things blow up. But the beauty of marriage is that if you picked the right person and you both love each other, you’ll always figure out a way to get through it. ~ Nicholas Sparks
If you love a flower, don’t pick it up. Because if you pick it up it dies, it ceases to be what you love. So if you love a flower, let it be. Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation. ~ Osho
A good marriage is the union of two good forgivers. ~ Ruth Bell Graham
You don’t love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear. ~ Oscar Wilde
Try not to confuse “attachment” with “love”. Attachment is about fear and dependency, and has more to do with love of self than love of another. Love without attachment is the purest form of love because it isn’t about what other can give you because you’re empty. It is about what you can give others because you’re already full. ~ Yasmin Mogahed
Happily ever after is not a fairy tale. It’s a choice. ~ Fawn Weaver
Love is a partnership of two unique people who bring out the very best in each other, and who know that even though they are wonderful as individuals, they are even better together. ~ Barbara Cage
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. ~ John Lennon and Paul McCartney
To keep the fire burning brightly there’s one easy rule: Keep the two logs together, near enough to keep each other warm and far enough apart, about a finger’s breadth, for breathing room. Good fire, good marriage, same rule. ~ Marnie Reed Crowell
There is no greater happiness for a man than approaching a door at the end of a day knowing someone on the other side of that door is waiting for the sound of his footsteps. ~ Ronald Reagan
The more things we can laugh about, the more alive we become: The more things we can laugh about together, the more connected we become. ~ Frank Pittman
When there is love in a marriage, there is harmony in the home; when there is harmony in the home, there is contentment in the community; when there is contentment in the community, there is prosperity in the nation; when there is prosperity in the nation, there is peace in the world. ~ Chinese Proverb
Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable. ~ Joseph Addison
In marriage, each partner is to be an encourager rather than a critic, a forgiver rather than a collector of hurts, an enabler rather than a reformer. ~ H. Norman Wright
In every marriage, more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find, and to continue to find, grounds for marriage. ~ Robert Anderson
The last one and to me, the most meaningful of all.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keep no records of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection; when we see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. ~ 1 Corinthians 13
Congratulations my sweet J & J. I pray for many, many happy years ahead for you. Continue to show the love and respect for each other, to show your children by example, the kind of enduring love they can look forward to. And to my own darling husband, here’s to keeping the connection alive, each and every day.
My love… always and forever,
Me
Unordinary Woman 