Forever and Always

Tonight, we went to the beautiful wedding of two dear friends. They've been together almost as long as Michael and I were before we got married. It was such an honor to see them promise their lives to each other and I pray they love each other more everyday.

Going to weddings always makes me think of my own wedding. I remember the moment I started to walk down the aisle with my dad. I had been fairly calm all day--until the moment I looked up and saw Michael standing there, waiting for me. I was suddenly overwhelmed with joy that the day had finally come, that I was finally getting ready to marry the love of my life. Sometimes, I still wake up and see him lying next to me and my heart jumps! It's an incredible thing to spend my life with the person God made for me.

It hurts my heart to see people "drift apart" and "fall out of love". I'll bet you that almost every wedding day looks the same. A couple who is deliriously happy and in love promises to spend the rest of their lives together. With many of those couples, somewhere along the way, things start to go very wrong. Sometimes, there are legitimate problems in marriages, like abuse and unfaithfulness. More often, people simply stop trying. They let everything else in the world get in the way. Marriage is work. Love isn't just a feeling. Sometimes love is an effort--like making yourself get out of bed to go jogging even though you're tired or studying for a test and trying your best even though you'd rather just give up.

Cara and Andrew, I pray you share many happy years together! Don't sweat the small stuff, don't go to bed angry, and remember:

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. ⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
--1 Corinthians 13:4-11