Inspiration

Our son had only heard his grandfather pray at Thanksgiving, Easter, and other special occasions; when he, typically, said a long prayer over the food. One night, after a fun camp-out and fishing trip, grandfather (to our son's surprise) asked a very brief blessing on the food.

With a gleam in his eye, our son grinned at his Grandfather and said, "You don't pray so long when you're hungry, do you Grandpa?"

"A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the same time."
- Anne Taylor Fleming

On their 50th wedding anniversary and during the banquet celebrating it, Tom was asked to give his friends a brief account of the benefits of a marriage of such long duration.

"Tell us Tom, just what is it you have learned from all those wonderful years with your wife?"

Tom responds, "Well, I've learned that marriage is the best teacher of all. It teaches you loyalty, meekness, forbearance, self-restraint, forgiveness - and a great many other qualities you wouldn't have needed if you'd stayed single."

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
- Theodore Roosevelt