OUR 1,325,376,000 SECONDS OF MARITAL JOURNEY

by: Norberto Betita

I was already awake early dawn but I tried not to disturb my wife in her most sound slumber. I waited until she woke up and offered her early morning prayer before I finally hugged her tight and greeted her with more ‘I love yous’ not for a daily routine but for our 42nd wedding anniversary. While she was preparing our breakfast, I offered my personal prayer in deepest expressions of gratitude to Heavenly Father for giving me and my wife such long years of togetherness and unbounded love. I burst into tears as I thank God for all the cherished memories of enduring the many ups and downs in our marital journey. As she finished her cooking and went back to our room we held hands together and again offered our thanks to God for all that He has blessed us through the years. I again have my tears flow as I thanked Him for every single thread that He added each day to our marital bond as to help us endure the mounting challenges of our marital relationship and with the sealing promise that we will be together for this time and throughout all eternity.

On this our 42nd wedding anniversary we would have been married 15,340 days including the ten leap years, in all equivalent to 368,160 hours; 22,089,600 minutes or a total of 1,325,376,000 seconds! I thought that if perchance the last number could only be converted into pesos that should have been more than enough to buy the suggested modern 42nd wedding anniversary gift---an improved real estate---for my ever dearest wife. Yet in my mind was the wondrous thought that those every minute moments of equally most joyful and extremely challenging experiences are not worth even that much in cash as it is to us priceless. Every second of that long 42 years are of infinite worth for it is during those instances that the stones and mortars---joys and sorrows; sunshine and shadows; calm and winds; health and sufferings; goodwill and tribulations---of the family foundations that is built to endure into the eternities, were put in place. No amount or type of a gift can ever match the worth of the glow and radiance that glitter from a refined marital relationship as it passes the intensified heat of the refiner’s fire. For me and my wife, a loving hug, a tender kiss and most sincere expressions of love are precious enough to gladden and brighten our day of celebration.

In all my life, I have always considered my ever dearest wife as the best things that ever happened to me. Our children might have thought that she’s perfect as a wife, or that I am perfect as a husband that they always compare our relationship with their early marital challenges and experiences. Of course we’re not. We are a partnership of equally imperfect beings, but with a common goal. We have so many of good times as well as bad times. As it is with them in their early marriages, in our times we sometimes also build walls between us. We have troubles and misunderstandings, failures and successes, yet we tried to remain focused in our common marital objective which helped us to resolve our differences. We together submit our burdens to the ever loving Heavenly Father for help and throughout those long years He never had forsaken us. He has provided us with additional daily thread to add to our marital bond and so strengthen the knot of our relationship. These daily strengthening threads roll up and enlarge even more by loving, forgiving, repenting and understanding each other.

The echoes of the challenging and inspiring past still remain fresh and sweet in the memory, while the joy and challenges of the present create an added cupola to protect us from the remaining storms of our lives. Throughout those 42 years we learned and understand that marriage is not a journey of ease and comfort but of finding joy in the midst of unvarying trials and tribulations. We came to realize that as we center our relationship in the gospel of Jesus Christ the adversary will have no power to break the bonds of our marital union no matter how powerful and formidable his attack may be on our relationship. It is only when we allow anger and hatred; selfishness and greed; and marital infidelity to have place in our hearts that we become subjects and easy converts and enlists to the devil’s ever alluring temptations. 

As we are getting older, we look forward to be able to celebrate our golden wedding anniversary. My darling wife would say that we might not be able to reach that length of time. I assured her we would. I have faith in Divine Providence. That has been my wish from this day and onwards. I am most optimistic that our PHP50 worth of wedding reception will reach a milestone of 50 years of enduring marital love, unity, harmony and peace.

To my ever dearest and infinitely beautiful Letty, I express my deepest gratitude and heartfelt appreciation for her unbounded love that defies all barriers along the path of our 1,325,376,000 seconds of marital journey. I hope that my daily expressions of love bestow a parallel as we walk together far into the realms of eternity.

HAPPY 42ND WEDDING ANNIVERSARY TO MY EVER DEAREST LETTY!

WHEN DEATH PROVIDES SORROWFUL RELIEF

By: Norberto Betita

Their wedding day

There is no greater refining test perhaps for a righteous man than for him to be pinned in bed for more than nine years suffering a debilitating disease; totally incapacitated even more than an infant. No greater love, sacrifice and faith is expressed by a loving wife than for her caring and nursing a suffering husband 24/7 and alone for the same period of such a very painful struggle; a burden more difficult than rearing and caring for a little child. Perhaps there is no comparable more painful grapple and strain and lamentation than for a wife witnessing daily her dearly beloved husband suffer in agony and pain and patiently enduring the saddest view of life without even the chance of relief, than painstakingly awaiting the final call to leave this frail existence. No greater love is expressed by a beloved wife than to sit beside her agonizing marital partner and fulfilling her eternal covenant to love and to hold for better or for worse for time and all eternity. The day, however, did finally come when death provides sorrowful relief as the ailing and excruciatingly suffering husband breathed his last as he was finally appointed to surrender his mortal coil and free his eternal soul for repose. 

Death happens to all of us. It comes to the rich and the poor; the weak and the strong; the joyful and forlorn; the young and elderly; and to the wicked as well as to the righteous. It grabs the child’s life in the tenderness of infancy; it summons the youths in the bloom of hope and the glory of expectations; it opens its heavy doors for the men and women in the heights of success; and it offers relief to the sick and afflicted as they yield in final submission to the will of their maker. While it brings about sorrow and grief in the hearts of the bereaved, yet it is not the end, but only a chapter of an eternal story. All must pass the portals of death as a necessary prologue to a new episode and beginning.

My brother-in-law Doroteo Friolo Gilvero was a man of righteous predilection. He came to Surigao City as a missionary of his former religious affiliation. He earned a living as a tailor. When he married my wife’s sister, he started his own small tailoring shop and went back to college eventually earning a degree in accounting. He tried to test his interest in insurance underwriting and passed the required examinations and so became a licensed insurance sales underwriter while at the same time continuing his tailoring shop. When he converted into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, he eventually became the first Bishop of Surigao Branch, under the Butuan Philippines Stake. He went to Digos City to start his own insurance and other services business. While there, he again served in different capacities without fail. His family was sealed at the Manila Philippines Temple.

As his business continued to regularly grow, he trained his only child---a son---to work with him. While they were in this kind of father and son partnership, he unexpectedly suffered a stroke. Efforts had been done for him to recover, but in vain. He slowly was immobilized and stuck in bed for the next nine years. Having his son trained and prepared in the business was truly a blessing as to have it sustained and conserved in his absence.

Indeed, in life, we daily witness unanticipated and bewildering afflictions, tragedies and calamities both to the righteous and the wicked. These are not all about punishments and consequences of sins. To the righteous it comes as a trial of faith; a process of sanctification. My brother-in-law had lived his life in harmony with God’s eternal plan, looking beyond all the challenges of life and with visions far into eternity. Sometimes we feel justified to question why he suffered that much agony and pain. But we knew and understand that everything that happens to us is according to God’s will.

While his passing may have been a relief for the family, yet to the heavily burdened wife, sorrow and tear-filled loneliness engulfed the soul. Yet grief and tearful separation is such a necessary prelude of the promised glorious reunion in the life to come. Surely the bereaved family will be missing the loss of a loved-one, but the hope and assurance of a glorious resurrection provides comfort and a never ending view and vision of a future reunification in the realms of God. The timeless promise of the family being together forever provides added meaning to all the sacrifices that the family had faced and endured; even the challenges yet to come. Death is the healing balm to the ills of mortality. It comes as a realization that everything on earth is temporary, even life itself. To the dead, death clears away the mounting doubts of a life hereafter and so expects of us to believe in their present reality. Therefore, for the dead, the best homage is not to take sorrow but more of gratefulness. In our moments of sadness it is best then to trust in God’s infinite promise to the faithful and obedient: “And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow” (Alma 40:12).

For us, the living, it is of paramount significance that we express gratitude for each added new day that comes in our mortality giving us more opportunities of service and love for people around us as we prepare best for our final call. We are so lucky we are given enough time to mend our mistakes and to show more of our love for the Lord Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. While it may be true that we suffer the anguish and sorrow of pain from the many natures of the burdens of life---afflictions, injuries, trials and tribulation---yet it is a joy that still we are given more opportunities to live our life to the fullest. We are privileged to enjoy the beauty of winning our battles and the wonders of victory.

I express my personal condolences to the bereaved family of my brother-in-law, DOROTEO FRIOLO GILVERO, for his passing. May his dearly beloved wife; son and family; siblings and relatives be ever comforted of the promise that, “…God shall wipe away all tears from [his] eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son” (Revelation 21: 4, 7).

May this reassuring proof and confirmation eliminate and expunge the mourning and sadness when death provides sorrowful relief and eventually bestow spiritual uplift and cheers into our hearts.