One frosty winter morning not long ago, we set out to make a quick trip to the store.  Jim grabbed the window scraper and cleaned off the driver’s side of the windshield.  As every wife knows, the rule is that both sides of the windshield have to be scraped before we begin.  Off we headed with him seeing clearly and me only half-seeing through a glare of ice.  I winced at every oncoming car as I squinted through my frosted windshield.  Soon I turned to him and asked, “How can you drive if I can’t see?”  We laughed.  After more than forty years of marriage, there are many places in our lives where we both have to see in order to get where we are going.

Just as I like to know what is happening, even when Jim is driving, he likes to be helpful in the kitchen before company arrives.  His gentle, guiding comments usually include, “Do we need this many vegetables?  Are you sure this has finished cooking?  We know this type of married behavior is common because not long ago in a restaurant we overheard a couple at a nearby table as they described a recent vacation.  The husband said, “We went 1,500 miles in three days.  She did all the driving.  I just held on to the wheel.”  We knew what he meant.

We doubt such married behavior is new.  Think of Mrs. Noah and the ark.  Surely she must have stood by with helpful comments like:  “Do you have to build it THAT big?  Are you sure God said two of ALL of these animals?  Did he really say FORTY days of rain?”

Marriage, too, is an ark.  We build it beam by beam, sometimes smashing a thumb or two in the process.  We make use of our unfinished, imperfect marriages to shelter ourselves and our children from life’s worst storms.  We walk side by side, yet remain independent.  How many of us can still recall the lines by Kahil Gibran about the pillars standing together, yet apart?  Somebody read those words from Gibran at every other wedding in the sixties.