Arm, in Arm, in Arm

As I stepped carefully out of the car in front of the church, I noticed it was beginning to rain. I remember thinking it was a good thing I wasn’t superstitious—because today was our wedding day.

     “Love is patient, love is kind.”

Father Mike smiled as he began his homily with these words from 1 Corinthians 13. He was my childhood pastor and a dear family friend, and he graciously agreed to travel to upstate New York to officiate our wedding. Even though I had only attended the small New England church he pastored for about four years, it felt as though I had grown up there. He and his wife Kitty opened their home to my friends and me, and some of my favorite memories happened around their kitchen table after school.

    “…Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable…”

The rain outside the church had stopped, but clouds still filled the sky. Father Mike continued, reminding us that these next words—describing what love is not—are just as important as the words that remind us what love is. We’re human, of course—we get jealous and annoyed and prideful. But our love, and our marriage, shouldn’t be characterized by envy or arrogance, selfishness or crankiness.

     “…and [love] does not keep a record of wrongs.”

“Don’t keep score,” Father Mike reminded us. I remember him looking at each of us, one at a time, as he said these words. Jerry and I would both make mistakes, he said, and we would both be tempted to resurrect each other’s mistakes in arguments long after forgiveness had been extended. “Don’t do that,” he cautioned us. The faintest ray of sunlight brightened the window to my right as these words settled into my heart, a quiet confirmation I didn’t yet understand. 

     “…Love finds no joy in righteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things…” 

As we listened to Father Mike on that September day, Jerry and I had no idea how much our love would need to bear. 

•      Our love would need to carry both the burden and the consequences of our marriage crisis. 

•      Our love would need to believe that reconciliation was possible. 
•      Our love would have to hope that our marriage could be restored, even when hopelessness felt easier. 

And our love would need to endure hours of hard conversations, numerous sleepless nights, the concern of family and friends, and ultimately a move halfway across the country—to a place where we knew only one person—to help us begin anew as a family.

We certainly didn’t know that, for a season, one of us would feel as though she were bearing, believing, hoping and enduring—alone. 

God knew, though, that we would need these love-bearing words spoken over us and sown into the soil of our brand-new marriage. 

“Arm, in arm, in arm,” Father Mike continued, his eyes twinkling. He knew we hadn’t expected this shift from scripture to story. He looked behind us at our friends and family, gathered to both witness and celebrate, and told us that just a few weeks earlier, he had seen Jerry and I walking along Beacon Street in Boston. We didn’t see him stop at a red light by the entrance to Boston Common, he said, because we were talking, our eyes focused on each other. Our arms linked—”arm, in arm, in arm.”

Arm, in arm, in arm. I’ve never forgotten how he described us. 

I held onto these words when, only a few years later, our steps faltered and our linked arms dropped to our sides. 

I held onto us.

A couple of years ago, Father Mike, his wife Kitty, and my parents met for dinner at a little Italian restaurant in the North End of Boston. They’ve been friends for over 40 years now, their friendship lasting long after our family moved away to a different state back when I was in high school. Over slices of the very best pizza in all of New England, Father Mike pulled out a handful of yellow pages of paper, filled with his distinctive script. It was the homily—the original pages he had written and then read from over 30 years earlier at our wedding. He had found the pages while he was going through his ministry files, and he wanted Jerry and I to have them. 

What a gift.

When I told a friend about this treasure, she suggested I frame it, and I did. Now, the “arm in arm in arm” part of Father Mike’s words sit in a gold frame on my dresser, next to my favorite photo from our wedding.

And now, when I reflect on the rain that fell on our wedding day, I’m reminded that Jerry and I have indeed walked through a storm. But even during the worst of it, neither of us was ever truly alone. Love bore, believed, hoped, and endured. And in time, we linked our arms, and our hearts, again.

     “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13, NIV)

     “Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in righteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things…And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7; 13, NIV)

Deb Alexander has been married to her college sweetheart for 34 years. They have two children, and two grandsons (one more on the way!) who have captured their hearts. Deb was born and raised in New England, and she and her family have called central Illinois home for over 25 years. She is a writer and a life-and-work coach who loves birds, books, long walks on the trail near her home, and family dinners. 

Deb would love to connect with you on Substack at deborahalexander.substack.com, where she writes words to encourage you as you navigate a hard season in your marriage with resilience and grace.