Rejoicing in Four Years of Grace

Today I am rejoicing. Stacey and I are celebrating our fourth anniversary this very day. As I look back over the four years, I have to marvel at God's grace... in so many ways!

On this anniversary I'm rejoicing in God's grace in these three ways in particular:

1. God looked at me, liked he looked at Adam, and said, 'It is not good for that guy to be alone.' I could not possibly agree more! The Lord provided a bride for me--out of all men, the most undeserving. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She has become one with me. She is my partner, my friend, my lover, my helper, my companion, my counsellor. She listens, she shares, she opens herself up to me, and she lets me open up my heart to her. I am grateful for God's grace in giving me my wife. I couldn't do 10% of what I do if I didn't have her.
   


2. God has preserved our marriage through his love and by his grace. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Love hopes and believes all things. That's God's love... and it's been poured out into our hearts and into our marriage by the Holy Spirit through the example and work of Christ. This is amazing... and so needed! Maybe other husbands are just better husbands than me, but I don't see how any marriage could last without the love of Christ, present and active. I have needed my wife to forgive me countless times. I have needed her to continue to open her heart to me time after time when I've hurt her or let her down. She's never failed, because of God's grace. Her love for Christ is powerfully evident in her faithful love for me, no matter how many times I mess up. I am thankful to God that my wifes 'hopes all things' and 'believes all things' for me now, even more than she did four years ago today. That is evidence of God's grace, and so I'm thankful to God for my bride.


3. My wife has grown in beauty. Over the five years that I have known her, I have watched Stacey grow in remarkable ways as she seeks to live in 'respectable and pure' ways. She has worked hard to make sure that her adorning is not external, but is an 'imperishable beauty' of the inner person, which is precious in God's sight--and a husband's! She has been a faithful testimony to me of God's Spirit active and working in the heart of a woman... and that is a beautiful thing indeed. And on top of all that, she has flourished in external beauty as well. How could I have imagined that? I don't know... but it sure makes me look forward with great anticipation to our fiftieth anniversary!
   

So, Stacey, thanks for four wonderful years. Here's to many, many more!