There is something beautiful about the mending of a relationship once broken. It happens from time to time. Brothers who had vowed eternal enmity. Sisters who had long ago ceased to converse. Then something happens and that which was broken is restored. Perhaps it is beautiful because it reminds us of our relationship with God. Once that was broken, but because of God's great love for us, He took the initiative and reached across the great divide to bring us back to Himself. And that is what He wishes for each of us to do.

On their first day of college back in 1968, Marsha Lockwood and Michael Cramer met. They were both freshmen at the University of Massachusetts. They liked each other immediately. They learned that they came from neighboring towns, and they were only weeks apart in age. They had much in common, both played instruments in their high school marching bands. Their families had friends in common.

As they began to date they discovered that they both had grandfathers who worked in the same office building. One was an accountant; the other was an insurance man. The two grandfathers were both in their seventies.

When the two grandfathers were young boys they had gone to school together. They had been good friends all during their childhoods. In the 1920s, though, they had a feud. It was over a business matter. Hyman Brodsky and Louis Cramer were furious with each other. They stopped speaking to each other entirely.

They did not speak a word for over fifty years. When they would be in the elevator with other business persons, they would talk to the others, but never to each other. They would not even look at each other. If they happened to find themselves with just the two of them in the elevator, the two boyhood friends would ride upstairs in total silence. Fifty years of this.

Meanwhile, the romance of Marsha and Michael was growing more and more serious. In 1974 they became engaged.

As Hyman Brodsky and Louis Cramer were riding upstairs in the elevator, one of them remarked casually, "Well, it looks like the kids are going to get married." The other one said, "Yes, it looks that way." The silence of fifty years had been broken.

A month before the wedding the two grandfathers were invited to an engagement party. It was the first time they had been at a social occasion together in over fifty years.

"They were sitting next to each other all through the party," Marsha recalls. "They were talking about their days in school back when they were boys. It was as if no time had passed at all." Their friendship seemed to grow immediately. Both had forgotten what that original argument had been about. It was a business argument, but neither one of them remembered the details. Marsha and Michael were married; Hy and Louie were restored to being the best of friends.

Marsha kept thinking that she and her new husband had changed history in a way " not prominent, worldwide history " but by meeting and falling in love, they had changed the personal histories of their two grandfathers " Hy and Louie " and somehow that seemed very important to her.