No Greater Gift

You’ve planned and prepared for this day, covered every detail, and made sure every significant person in your lives was invited.  It’s been months of preparation, deciding and sacrificing so that this day would be memorable.  This day, in all its beauty, has been given to you as a gift from the One who brought you to this moment: to behold, to treasure, to remember.

May you recognize your marriage as a gift – a divine, sacred moment when two individual lives were brought together to unite as one and walk the narrow path, leading to Life, hand in hand.  Do not take this miraculous occurrence for granted.  Do not compare this gift to others around you.  Instead, embrace it as the unique love God has abundantly blessed you with out of the storehouse of His riches.

Live this new life intentionally, understanding that your lives are different now and connected in a way that they had not been before.  Your strength comes from within your unity – alone you were once easily overpowered, but together and with God you cannot be broken.

Seasons of life will bring change, a constant and continual uprooting of where you may learn to find comfort and think you have established, know that this is normal– and make the changes together as you find your footing in the unchanging promises of God.

Hard times will surely come, you will be stretched thin and you will have little left to give.  These are the times when most others walk out.  May you allow these moments to bring you closer to one another and to God.  Knowing that as He allows you to go through these times, He will comfort you, sustain you, provide for you and grow your love for one another as you remain in Him.

Marriage offers the gift of seeing the worst in each other and being able to love one another even more so because of this.  It requires aggressive forgiveness and the opportunity to extend grace to the one you love more than life itself.  When one of you falls short, understand that it is as though you are the one in need of grace and extend it – fully, without reservation.  Gently and humbly lead one another back to the cross if one of you should stray.

The gift of your love is not only to be treasured by you, but also to be shared.  Never underestimate God’s power through your marriage.  Allow the bond between you to encourage others to live life with extravagant love. May the joy you find in the adventures ahead of you become contagious and spread to all those who your lives come in contact with.  May your hearts and home be open to those God brings across your path to share life with.

The true beauty of marriage occurs in the years that follow the wedding day.  It’s found in the hands that have learned to hold tightly to each other come what may.  In the eyes that hold a lifetime of stories shared and memories made, and whose simple presence makes life sweeter.  It’s a beauty that comes from a life lived well and lived together.  May you live each moment as a decision to love one another fully and always more so than before.  There is no greater adventure for you to experience and no greater gift than to walk through life with your best friend at your side.