Place Your Marriage in the Hands of a Sovereign God
Kim Wier
Engaging Women Ministries
I certainly wasn't thinking twenty years down the road when I said "yes" to the young man kneeling in front of me on the wooden bridge on Tall Pines Trail. Twenty years later, and a lot of water under the bridge later, we revisited our past and discovered just how much difference a couple of decades can make. It was like a trip down memory lane, or at least down the hiking trail, as we took our family camping at the same state park where my husband proposed.
I remember it like it was yesterday. We were both in the last semester of our senior year of college. We had been dating almost six months. Neither of us really had a plan for life after graduation, or so I thought. I hadn't even begun to seriously consider my employment options. After all, life was good as a student. My dad paid for my car and my part time job covered all my other financial obligations. I was content living in my state of limbo between student and responsible citizen.
I didn't know that my boyfriend was about to shove us both into full fledged adulthood with those four simple words, "Will you marry me?" Quite unexpectedly, as we were hiking down the Tall Pines Trail at
From that day forward, we began to plan; first for the wedding and then for real life. It was such a thrilling time to face a world of possibilities and have someone beside me to share my dreams.
Twenty years later we stood on that same footbridge, only this time we weren't alone. Our three teenagers hiked along. As Tony and I shared a sentimental moment, reenacting that pivotal point in our lives, the significance was lost on our children, but not the humor.
"Careful, Dad. You're not as young as you used to be. You want me to help you get up off your knee?"
"Mom, did you have that many wrinkles the last time Dad proposed?"
"No," I insisted, "and I didn't have three smarty pants kids tagging along, either."
Despite their groans and rolling eyes, and even the ravages of time, I wouldn't turn the clock one minute. Planning for life was fun, but living life has been the far greater adventure - made up of things we expected and things we never saw coming.
As we dreamed about our life it included children and a home of our own. We planned for good jobs and enjoying some of life's comforts; we dreamed of baseball games and backyard cook-outs. All that and more we got. Of course, I also dreamed of a summer house in
Then there were the things we hadn't planned for, but came all the same (and I'm not talking about the mini van and the cellulite). We got -- but didn't plan for -- saying goodbye to friends who moved away and mourning the loss of people we loved. We faced trials at work, financial strains and health crisis'. There were disagreements, disappointments and disasters, none of which were on our list of hopes for the future.
Yet every expected and unexpected moment has created something far more valuable than "happily ever after." As we discovered that not every thing in life can be planned, we also discovered by God's grace that everything in life has been planned for - and we can trust the Planner.
No matter how carefully we orchestrate the details, life will always hold the unexpected. Our confidence doesn't come in being able to plan for such times, but in trusting the One who commands the stars and who superintends good times and bad. Those who do, find the same peace Job discovered in the midst of his trials when he declared, "Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?" Job 2:10
God, who holds all things together by the word of His power (Hebrews 1:3), will surely hold our families together as we brave the trail set before us.
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