32 years: not luck, but love

Today June 12th , Nikki and I celebrate 32 years of marriage.

That’s 11,680 days filled with laughter, tears, mistakes, mercy, and more grace than we deserved.

By every measurable standard, we weren’t supposed to make it.
We were young Nikki had just finished 11th grade, and I was an 18-year-old high school dropout.
No degree. Little to no money. No roadmap.

Just a yes at the altar and a fire in our hearts to write a better story. This is hindsight language. We had no idea of anything.

We waited a year before having our baby girl, Jordan.
But let’s be honest we were still kids raising kids soon after.
By 25, we had three children (and had walked through the pain of miscarriage).
We didn’t have college degrees. We didn’t have health insurance half the time.
What we did have were late-night struggles, early morning diaper changes, and the unspoken resolve to stay.

And the statistics?

• 70% of couples who marry before 25 don’t make it.

• Interracial couples in the South in the early 1990s made up just 1.3% of all marriages—and many faced rejection, even from their own families. (We didn’t even realize, at the time, how much of our the struggle was tied to race. Trust me when I say we felt the tension, the weight, the exclusion but it took years to name it for what it was.
  And the saddest part? Most of the pushback didn’t come from strangers—it came from spiritual people.)

• Having children young? 67% of couples report a drop in marital satisfaction.

By the numbers, we should have been a footnote.
But by grace, we became a testimony.

It’s not luck - it’s love.
It’s not natural - it’s supernatural.
It’s not perfect - it’s consistent, committed, and covered by grace.

We’ve fought. We’ve forgiven. We’ve laughed hard. We’ve cried deep.
We’ve grown up while growing together.
And when everything around us said “you won’t make it,” we whispered to each other, “We will.”

No one lasts 32 years on good vibes and chemistry.
It takes faith, grit, humility, and sometimes just the decision to keep showing up, even when it’s hard.

So this anniversary isn’t just a celebration of time.
It’s a declaration of hope:

You don’t have to be perfect to make it.

You just have to be willing, honest, and rooted in something greater than yourselves.

If your story is starting out rough, or you’re carrying more baggage than blessings, listen close:

You can beat the odds. You can build something beautiful. You can outlast the storm.

Because real love doesn’t rely on the statistics, it rewrites them.

Nikki, You are still my favorite flavor! Here’s to 32 years.
And by God’s grace, here’s to many more.

– Steven

Maybe we will write a book this year ” Still in Love”