Well, we’re down to 53 days away from the wedding, and the past 215 days have been some of the most trying, stressful, joyous, and exciting days of my life. God has grown me and matured me in the last 6 months more than I could have ever imagined. He’s grown my patience, faith, love, gentleness, kindness, and contentness, and He’s humbled me like I’ve never been before. He’s opened my eyes to things I’ve never seen before, and revealed Himself to me more. Honestly, if I didn’t write about it, I would explode!
There are so many things I could share in this blog, but if I shared all of them this blog would last for a week so I’ll just share a few.
One thing that I have to write about is how God works in our relationships (specifically a marriage relationship) to reveal Himself to us. Honestly, up until about 2 years ago, I was really on the fence about marriage and if it was something God had for me or even something that I wanted. With marriage these days, the odds seem to be against a full, godly marriage because they are so hard to come by. Also, I was relating to Paul a lot when he says that you’re blessed if you’re not married, I mean marriage is obviously hard just look at the numbers: 50% of marriages in America are expected to end in divorce. WHOA. So according to that Philip and I have a 50/50 chance of making it. (that’s a joke by the way, our covenant with each other won’t be broken) Anyway, so I doubted marriage and God’s power to work through it, kind of. I’ve since seen a whole new side to marriage. As I’ve studied marriages in the bible and what marriage represents, and as Philip and I have sought to treat each other like God calls us to, God has started to reveal the beauty of marriage to me. It’s like Ephesians 5:22-33 is coming alive right before my eyes. It’s a beautiful cycle that I’ll attempt to explain. As I’m drawn closer to Christ by His grace, I know and am able to respect and love Philip, the same way the church is called to be towards Christ. As Philip is drawn closer to Christ by His grace, He is able to love and treat me like Christ does the church. And when we are being that picture of Christ and the Church to each other, we in turn, experience God in a more intimate, real way than we ever have and are drawn closer to Him. This brings me back to my initial statement. God has worked in a MIGHTY way through my relationship to Philip to bring me to a more intimate relationship with Him. I am able to understand Christ deeper as lover, warrior, and savior through my relationship with Philip. God also uses this relationship to humble me and change me to look more like Him. All I can say is that only Yhwh can take two really messed up people and create a relationship that looks like that! But that’s just a glimpse…the bigger picture is of the church and Christ!! Now THAT’S amazing!! Not only can He create a relationship like that between two people, but He can take a whole GROUP of messed up, broken people and create something this beautiful.
Now, how can I be stressed about wedding planning when I meditate on my God. I know it’s not over, but this season of engagement and wedding planning has kind of been a practice run of what’s to come. Life is going to get busy, and it’s going to seem crazy sometimes, but God’s blessed me with so many amazing, Godly relationships that point me to Him. And when I remember the God who is my Father, Lover, Protector, Warrior, and Savior, and all He is and all He’s done, it’s a lot easier to deal with the trials of this life.
TO GOD BE THE GLORY!
