so, like i said God totally blew me away with that sweet revelation while reading this morning, but he didnt stop there. nope. i kept reading & after just being smitten with the ways that Jesus pursues me, i started to focus more on the marriage of husband & wife and not Christ & the Church.
who doesnt love a good wedding? you can sit & see the love that the man has for his {almost} wife & you can see the respect radiating from that woman to her {almost} husband. it brings people to tears because it is so beautiful. but what happens after that lovely ceremony? does that love & respect just keep going strong & never skipping a beat? i know in my marriage it didnt. {oh dear, thats another post all in itself. i believed so many lies about marriage!} i know that quickly we began this crazy cycle of my sweet man not loving me the way i expected him to & that i was not giving him the respect that he needed. this way of life just kept on going until we dug a little {okay, a lot} deeper & realized that with unconditional respect nick was able to love me like i needed & being loved that way i was able to give him the respect he needed. its a crazy balance that we are in no way amazing at but constantly working towards. its in those moments that we can really see & use the gospel in our marriage.
with all the hype around will & kate's big day, what i think that people{including me} are missing is that the wedding day is just the first day in the marriage, that we should be praying for them to know Jesus & to be able to apply the gospel to their marriage because without knowing & understanding what true royalty is & who the real king is marriage is hard. {it's hard even knowing & understanding that!} instead of oohing & ahhing over princess catherines wedding dress, we should pray for her heart & her salvation & pray for their marriage. that they can know Jesus & know how to love & respect one another, the way that speaks to the most intimate parts of their hearts.
i have so much more to say on this topic, but i dont want this post to get out of control long. so be on the lookout for more of my thoughts on marriage. until then, don't forget about my sweet giveaway! today is the last day to enter & i will be randomly selecting & announcing the winner tomorrow!!
happy sunday!
What a beautiful article - I really pray that their marriage would be as perfect as their wedding day & God would be faithful & true in their lives! XX
ReplyDeleteI love the Song of Solomon sermon series that Mark preached. One of the lessons that helped me the most was to think of my marriage in decades, not years. I think Jeff and I had been married around 7 years at the time. Jeff and I were both frusterated by different reoccurring conflicts in our marriage. Mark said it usually takes 7-9 years to learn to put your spouce before yourself. I had never heard anyone preach about marriage in terms of that amount of time! We are coming up on our 10th wedding anniversary. I am so excited to celebrate our 1st decade of marriage! It is truly amazing to think about how far God has taken us and how much he has taught us in our first decade! I can't wait to see and learn what He has in store for our next one :) oh, baby's crying... time to go... Great post! I love teaching my daughters that they are princesses (daughters of our King)!
ReplyDeleteAwesome thoughts on marriage, Miss Ally! It's amazing how I thought I didn't have expectations on how our marriage would be...until they weren't met. It's so key to look at Jesus as the example and pray that God would help me to serve my husband rather than just praying that God would make my husband serve me...lol.
ReplyDeleteI loved this post so much! I was sad to see them not really paying attention during the sermon part, but like you I hope that they can have a marriage based on those things!
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