In the past month I’ve cried a lot of tears over a marriage that is falling apart. It’s like a heavy weight that you carry around because like it or not other peoples grief and sin affect your life. I take it over and over again to the Lord, pray and then try and leave it there so I don’t carry it around. The burden is really not mine to carry anyway.
So this weekend when we attended the wedding of a sweet staff friend it was a refreshing reminder of love, God’s heart for us and a chance to be a part of the story that God is weaving in their lives.
The wedding was at the most beautiful location, under the St. John’s Bridge. That’s 
right a bridge. It looks like a cathedral underneath, the sun was shining down (very intensely, it was 95 degrees; the hottest day of the summer so far), the park was vivid with green everywhere and the chairs were filled with people who loved that couple and felt joy for them. Jennifer looked stunning and she was literally radiant under the intense sun shining down. Another reason it was so sweet was that Jennifer’s fiance was in a car accident three weeks ago and it’s really a miracle that he’s alive. He had to attend their wedding in a wheel chair. It’s not how most people envision beginning their lives together. It made them sharing their vows all that more incredible because they have already experience great adversity and have held strong. Their love has grown because they have trusted God and loved each other through it.
A passage of scripture that was read during the ceremony was 1 Cor. 13:4-8. Most of us know it and some mock it. But how often do we really see this kind of love? We don’t see it in the world often enough. We see a world of conditional love and let me be the first to say, conditional love is lame. We all want unconditional love. As I was listening to the verses being read I felt like God was saying to me:
I love and choose you even when you’re not patient
I love and choose you even when you’re envious
I love and choose you even when you’re rude
I love and choose you even when you’re self-seeking
I love and choose you even when you’re easily angered
I love and choose you even when you keep a record of wrongs
I love and choose you even when you delight in evil and don’t rejoice in the truth
I love and choose you even when you don’t protect, trust, hope or persevere
I love and choose you even when you fail
Now that is love; God loves with a perfect love that never fails. As a result of that I’m faced with the question, do I love my husband and others that way? I want to. Weddings centered around Christ always have a way of renewing my hope and reminding me to love even more deeply than I already am. I’m thankful that God loves me this way and that he’s given me a husband who strives to do the same. May I be one who chooses to love this way.
great post jody!