(If you want to hear Lori read the story click)here

 

 

The other day I received a very nice email expressing one man's appreciation for Marriage Moats. I was happy to read it, and read it through several times just because it felt great. Later that day I got a call from someone saying that his parents were sending a contribution to the marriage program. This too made me feel fabulous. More than fabulous.

 

Later I began to think about these kind people. Of course I do not know for sure, but I feel confident that their marriages are vibrant and secure. One is more than thirty years strong, and the other has topped sixty. It is not for themselves that they want there to be an ongoing effort to support marriage. It is for other people. 

 

This astounds me. It is like an octogenarian planting hardwood trees, knowing that he will never sit beneath their spreading branches, or watch the glory of their changing colors. It is like the lighthouse keepers in the last century, who themselves were safely on dry land, and kept their torches burning to light the way for sailors on the choppy seas at midnight. 

 

What motivates a person to care deeply for people who have not yet found their way? Is it always because they are grateful to those who mentored them? Or is it sometimes because they remember the loneliness of feeling lost, and ache to ease that suffering for friends they have not yet met?

 

Maybe it is because they have found a lovely stretch of the river, and are thrilled to share the current.