This weekend we are celebrating our anniversary. We both have mixed feelings. We both feel partly amazed that it has already been two years and also part of us feels like it has been much longer. As we reflect on our marriage we think a lot about how by God's grace and love we were brought together and how his grace and love is what continues to strengthen and unite our marriage. We have had some incredible conversations and also some incredibly silly conversations this weekend. I have so much joy when I think about the gift that Matthew is in my life and am excited for what is to come.
I feel like the last 6 months have been a huge turning point in our marriage on my end. I think that we are regularly taught that another person cannot meet our needs and we must look to God to fulfill our needs...etc. And I would have said that I got that, no problem, prior to being married. It has been so easy to look at Matthew, this physical man right in front of me that I spend more time with then anyone else, as the one who will meet all my needs. I have made the mistake far too often in our marriage of having unhealthy expectations of him and all this does is set me up for hurt, disappointment, bitterness and it breaks the bond of unity in our marriage. It is definitely not about the three of us (God, Matthew, and Myself) and it is hardly even about the two of us (Matthew and me) because all I am focusing on is myself.
God did a wonderful work in my heart in the last 6 months. He showed me how he beautifully created me to have needs that only he could fulfill to draw me into an intimate relationship with the only one who could love me perfectly, himself. He showed me more and more how Matthew is to be a picture, a representation, and a foreshadow of my relationship with Him. Over the last two years I have heard time and time again about the importance of our marriage. It is an incredible opportunity to be a picture to the world of how much Christ loves His Bride, the church. I have felt the weight of this responsibility and tried and tried to live that out. In this work that God has been doing he showed me that while my marriage can have an incredible eternal impact it, in and of itself, is not eternal. When Jesus takes me home I will no longer be Matthew's wife and he will no longer be my husband. Our marriage will not enter into eternity because when we enter into eternity we will be entering into a marriage with the creator of the universe.
The Lord gave me a parallel that has helped made this make sense to me. Money. God has purpose in our money. He desires every cent we are blessed with to be used for his glory. Whatever we do, we are to do it to the glory of God. He provides for us and gives us the ability to give to and provide for others. He can feed starving babies in Haiti, send his people to Africa to share his gospel, and help build buildings for people to gather to worship his name and learn from his word all through our finances. When we surrender our finances to the Lord they can be used to have an incredible, eternal impact. But our money itself is not eternal. And if we put our hope in it and find our identity in it then when the end comes, we will be left with nothing.
I wish this lesson would have come sooner. I wish I could have posted this blog 2 years ago, just a couple days before my wedding so that when I became Matthew's wife I would have not weighed him down with unrealistic, unhealthy expectations. But I know that the Lord has His purposes in me learning this lesson now. I know that it is so much deeper set in my heart because I can look back over the last two years and see how so many struggles we had were caused because I was looking to Matthew instead of to Christ to satisfy me.
The last couple of months have been amazing. It has nothing to do with me or what I have done. The Lord has done a work in my heart and I can see how it has incredibly impacted our marriage. I am excited to see where the Lord is taking us and what lessons are to come as we walk out in year 3. This is truly an amazing adventure. It has incredible challenges and amazing rewards and I know the Lord is just getting started! So here we go!
I feel like the last 6 months have been a huge turning point in our marriage on my end. I think that we are regularly taught that another person cannot meet our needs and we must look to God to fulfill our needs...etc. And I would have said that I got that, no problem, prior to being married. It has been so easy to look at Matthew, this physical man right in front of me that I spend more time with then anyone else, as the one who will meet all my needs. I have made the mistake far too often in our marriage of having unhealthy expectations of him and all this does is set me up for hurt, disappointment, bitterness and it breaks the bond of unity in our marriage. It is definitely not about the three of us (God, Matthew, and Myself) and it is hardly even about the two of us (Matthew and me) because all I am focusing on is myself.
God did a wonderful work in my heart in the last 6 months. He showed me how he beautifully created me to have needs that only he could fulfill to draw me into an intimate relationship with the only one who could love me perfectly, himself. He showed me more and more how Matthew is to be a picture, a representation, and a foreshadow of my relationship with Him. Over the last two years I have heard time and time again about the importance of our marriage. It is an incredible opportunity to be a picture to the world of how much Christ loves His Bride, the church. I have felt the weight of this responsibility and tried and tried to live that out. In this work that God has been doing he showed me that while my marriage can have an incredible eternal impact it, in and of itself, is not eternal. When Jesus takes me home I will no longer be Matthew's wife and he will no longer be my husband. Our marriage will not enter into eternity because when we enter into eternity we will be entering into a marriage with the creator of the universe.
The Lord gave me a parallel that has helped made this make sense to me. Money. God has purpose in our money. He desires every cent we are blessed with to be used for his glory. Whatever we do, we are to do it to the glory of God. He provides for us and gives us the ability to give to and provide for others. He can feed starving babies in Haiti, send his people to Africa to share his gospel, and help build buildings for people to gather to worship his name and learn from his word all through our finances. When we surrender our finances to the Lord they can be used to have an incredible, eternal impact. But our money itself is not eternal. And if we put our hope in it and find our identity in it then when the end comes, we will be left with nothing.
I wish this lesson would have come sooner. I wish I could have posted this blog 2 years ago, just a couple days before my wedding so that when I became Matthew's wife I would have not weighed him down with unrealistic, unhealthy expectations. But I know that the Lord has His purposes in me learning this lesson now. I know that it is so much deeper set in my heart because I can look back over the last two years and see how so many struggles we had were caused because I was looking to Matthew instead of to Christ to satisfy me.
The last couple of months have been amazing. It has nothing to do with me or what I have done. The Lord has done a work in my heart and I can see how it has incredibly impacted our marriage. I am excited to see where the Lord is taking us and what lessons are to come as we walk out in year 3. This is truly an amazing adventure. It has incredible challenges and amazing rewards and I know the Lord is just getting started! So here we go!
