“Grow old with me! The best is yet to be.” 
― Robert Browning

The other day, I saw this older couple on the beach, walking alongside each other like they probably have for years and years.  I thought: wow, that sure is something that gets taken for granted too often—that people grow old together and, on top of that, still enjoy each others’ company.

And on that note: here is a story about a couple overcoming difficulty and near-death and growing closer through it. A friend sent me the link today…it is the second time this week that someone mentioned Bob and Lee Woodruff. (Bob was the journalist whose face was shattered and brain was injured by an Iraqi bomb explosion some years back.) I haven’t read their book, but Lee’s words in the above link are moving. I especially liked this bit:

I’m supposed to agree here that “things happen for a reason” and “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle,” but I cannot. The truth is that awful things regularly befall good people … The beauty is that we get to decide how to move forward. You can choose your response: bitter or better? Quite simply, it is a choice.

One never knows when something catastrophic can happen in life and change everything. On the battlefield or a block away from home. These things change us, obviously.  But we get to decide how to move forward: bitter or better?