Wedding Thoughts

Tomorrow is two weeks before our wedding.  It is very odd in some ways, something that I've looked forward to for so long and that Dana and I have looked forward to together for quite some time as well.  There have been lots of preparations, lots of thoughts and planning, but as I look forward to that time the overwhelming sense I get is one of unpreparedness.  In so many ways its hard to believe that the day is less than a month away; the funny thing is that a year ago we thought we would already be married at this point, but it still seems like it is a long way off.  Maybe some of that is due to the fact that it has been pushed off so many times, so now that it is actually coming around it is hard to believe that this time its for real.  Or it could be the fact that I've started a new job in the past month and with all the newness related to that it is hard to comprehend starting something else so very new so very soon.  Or it could just be the fact that this will be the most important day of my adult life, and it is natural, in some ways, to both anticipate it as well as repress thoughts of it.

Overall, I must say that I am very excited, and perhaps the biggest reason it is hard to imagine getting married in two weeks is the fact that I feel like we already are.  So much has happened in the past few months that has required us to work closely together and to rely on each other, and we've made some large life transitions together with me interviewing at Swamp and starting in my new roles here, that in many ways it seems like our lives have already pulled into one.

But yet there is the anticipation of so much more.  In two weeks many of the simple life decisions that I make (such as how I clean up after myself, how I do the laundry, how I cook dinner, even how I clip my toenails!) will not only effect me, they will also effect Dana.  Soon, when I make decisions, and not just large ones such as what job I have and where I live, but little intricate things of life, like what I'll eat for dinner and whether I'll go out at night or stay at home, will not only effect me, they will effect Dana as well.  And I have great excitement about that, there is the sense of anticipation, the joy of sharing life with someone, but there is also some anxiety about it.

And so I find myself at this place, two weeks before our wedding, both anticipating the day but also struggling to remember that it is not that far away, and all of these things draw my mind towards a passage that I think is very important for me to remember.  Ephesians 5:25-30:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.  In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.  After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body.

 My prayer is that in the coming weeks and months I would remember this anticipation, that I would remember the desire to share life with Dana, that when things get tough I would look at how blessed we are, and how blessed I am to have her.  But most of all, I hope that I can keep my gaze firmly focused on Christ, that I can remember how it is that he loves us so that I can turn around and love Dana, that I can make the choices along the way to give myself for her, and most of all that through our relationship she would be drawn closer to God.