Happy 16th Anniversary Babe!

God has incredibly blessed me with a man who loves the Lord with all his heart and one who sacrificially gives of his time to his family and others in serving in many capacities.  From the day that we said "I do" our lives have been knitted together through the ups and downs of this life we live.  God has graciously blessed us beyond what we could have imagined or hoped for.

Through the struggles and trials of our sinfulness and of living in a broken world God has used those very things to cause us to seek Him and to cling to one another.  We can look back and see His imprints in those areas where we needed to be pruned and stripped down in order to see what was ultimately keeping us from glorifying Him.  The lessons we have learned have been and continue to deepen our love with each other as we together seek to grow in Christ as one.

To my husband, I love you so much more today then I did l6 years ago.  Never did I think that I could love someone this much.  Your love for me is an incredible gift that encourages and strengthens me in my walk.  Your example of godliness is a model for me to live out for Christ. I am so thankful for Him who gave you to me!  May we continue to draw closer to the ONE who brought us together and continue to seek His will for our lives as we love our children and show them by example how to love Christ and one another!  I love you with all my heart!!

John Piper shares the following:

The main meaning of marriage is to display the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church.  In other words, marriage was designed by God most deeply, most importantly, to be a parable or a drama of the way Christ loves his church and the way the church loves and follows to Christ.  This is the most important thing for all husbands and wives to know about the meaning of their marriage.

Marriage Portrays the Magnificent

The key passage has been Ephesians 5:23-25: “The husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Don’t be so familiar with this that it doesn’t strike you as amazing. Where in all the world would anyone talk about marriage this way? In three verses, he says it three times:

• Verse 23: marriage: even as Christ is the head of the church.
• Verse 24: marriage: as the church submits to Christ.
• Verse 25: marriage: as Christ loved the church.

What is the most important meaning of marriage? It is found in the words: “as Christ . . . asthe church . . . as Christ.” The ultimate meaning of marriage is not in marriage itself. It is not in the husband and not in the wife and not in the offspring. The ultimate meaning of marriage is in: “as Christ,” “as the church,” “as Christ.” Marriage is a magnificent thing because it is modeled on something magnificent and points to something magnificent. And the love that binds this man and woman in marriage is a magnificent love because it portrays something magnificent—“as Christ loved the church” and “as the church submits to Christ.” The greatness of marriage is not in itself. The greatness of marriage is that it displays something unspeakably great, Christ and the church.