50th Wedding Anniversary Hymn ... "Patient Love, Such Awesome Grace"

This month my parents are celebrating their 50th Wedding Anniversary. This is a time of joy and celebration for us as a family. I am grateful for my relationship with them that has assisted in my growth into who I am today. Being grounded in a family that cared for and about each other was and remains a gift in my life. Celebrating their anniversary is honoring and paying tribute to the relationships in their lives, mine included, that have meant and continue to mean so much.

Love is first and foremost a gift from God. God shows us over and over again what it means to truly love. Of course the most profound example of that is the sending of his Son Jesus Christ to make things right and offer us the hope and promise of grace. Paul so eloquently describes for the early church, and for us too, the love of God in that well known passage from his first letter to the Corinthians.

We're called to emulate that love in our relationships with each other. Sometimes we do that very well; other times we don't. However, it's always something we're called to strive for.

I offer this hymn about God's love and our call to love each other in celebration of my parent’s 50th Wedding Anniversary. My prayer for them is that they will continue to love each other, and those around them, just as God has loved them; and, that I may continue to learn from their witness as together we celebrate their 50 years of marriage.

“Patient Love, Such Awesome Grace”

Tune: Duke Street
Metre: LM

Perfect love, such awesome grace,
Love that is joyful to embrace.
Love that is patient and endures
This is the love that Christ ensures.

Through all time God’s love doesn’t end
God’s love grows stronger to transcend.
In sacred moments, on holy ground
God’s love is surely to be found.

Love faithfully in gentleness,
Show one another kindness.
God’s example is to be lived
As one another we forgive.

Faith and hope and love abide,
These are the gifts that God provides;
But to be sure love is the best
And by this love we all are blessed.

Love one another as I love you
Christ’s great commandment live anew.
In the relations of your life
As parent, child, husband and wife.

Perfect love, such awesome grace,
Love that is joyful to embrace.
Love that is patient and endures
This is the love that Christ ensures.

Text: copyright, The Rev. Mark Kinghan, 2009. Not to be reproduced or redistributed in any form without the express written permission of the author.