Funny story about wedding planning....it has its own agenda. Sure you tell it, lets only spend a certain amount on this one day....but then it gets its own ideas. You are just sitting there happy as a clam until one day you pull out that trusty calculator and realize you left the budget back in the dust. It is unfortunate as you scramble looking for quarters in the couch cushions, car seats and winter coats. And Ms. Wedding Planning just sits there and scoffs at you.
I'm told that in retrospect this will all be funny one day. We will look back on these days of frustration and laugh. Maybe. But despite all the number crunching, coupon clipping, and debit card swiping, we have been blessed to have parents that love us and help us pay for this once in a lifetime day :) Even better has been the number of married couples who have come alongside us an encouraged us to stay focused on our marriage and make sure that it is built firmly in Christ. The women who have encouraged me to use this time as a learning time to focus on the Lord and have Him prepare my heart for marriage and the men who have challenged TJ to imitate the leader that Christ was to the church have been the biggest encouragement and blessing through the last 11 months.
So here we are 2.5 months left until the big day. What an exciting thought!! Through Countdown this semester God has slowly but surely changed our way of thinking and our heart attitudes towards one another. It is so cool to see God change habits that we have made over the last 4 years. What a great joy it is to serve our King!
Ephesians 5:22-33
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30for we are members of his body. 31"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
1 Peter 3:1-7
1Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, 2when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. 3Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. 4Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. 5For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, 6like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.
7Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.
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