Love and Marriage

"Love and marriage, love and marriage
Go together like a horse and carriage
This I tell you brother
You can't have one without the other"
           -Frank Sinatra
           (and later ruined by the stupid show, Married with Children)



Marriage is a wonderful, sacred relationship.  I have been married for 8 years, and I can't imagine life with out my wife.  She has been a part of shaping who I have become.  My wife knows me deeper than anyone else.  She even knows the ugly things about me - my short comings, my failures, my sin - yet she is committed to me anyway.  That's what love is.  It's a commitment.  It's not a feeling, or an emotion, or a longing for, although those things often accompany love.  Love is mainly a commitment.  A commitment to die to yourself, your rights, your desires, for the sake of another.  That is what love and marriage is about.  I don't think many people understand this.  Most people want more to be loved, than to love.  This is why over half of marriages fail.  We can only truly love once we embrace how deeply we are loved by our Father in Heaven.  When we believe that he loves us, that we belong to him, then we are free to give our love away with out fear.

Jeff and Katy

Last week my youngest brother asked a lovely young lady to marry him.  It is a happy occasion that we look forward to celebrating.  I pray that they may know, and that you may know as well, how deep, how wide, how long and how wide is the love of the Father.  A love that is beyond all understanding.  A love that is able to do more than you could ever ask or imagine.   You belong.  You are loved.  Nothing can change that.