Anniversary

Today, much to my amazement (in our glorious God and His grace, not in my husband and our marriage) is our five year wedding anniversary. It is amazing to me how different we are now than we were five years ago, and only God could have crafted our relationship into what it is now. It is even more humbling to think that this gift we have of marriage, this covenant with one another that brought forth our precious daughter, is given to us as a symbol and parallel of Christ's love and covenant with us.

Speaking of covenants, the sermon Wednesday night was about covenants in preparation for our study of the Old Testament. Our pastor pointed out that covenants are always two-sided: I will do this, and you will do this. I will be your God, and you will be my people. Covenants are conditional - there are two sides that must be upheld by two parties. Thinking of marriage this way is sobering, but true. Love is a choice, not a feeling, and a marriage is maintained, grows and is blessed when each spouse wakes up in the morning desiring to love the other spouse. We must choose to love one another, even when others are unlovely and unlovable. And we must never forget that God loved us and Christ died for us when we were supremely unlovely and unlovable. What an awesome God we have; as our pastor said, He upheld our side of the covenant through Christ because we were unable to uphold it on our own. Deep thought for an anniversary, huh?

Our plans today are to go away for the evening, leaving Charlotte with her Auntie Brit. We will return to normal life on Saturday, and I will try to remember to take the camera with us so that there will be pictures of what we did to commemorate our five years together.