{for King & Country: Priceless}
Relationships. They’re magnificent. They’re magical. They’re… well, messy.
We all want a fairy tale. We all long for a love story. And yet… We live in a fallen world. So that means things don’t always turn out the way we imagine. People don’t always turn out the way we imagine. And our love stories don’t always turn out the way we imagine.
We make mistakes. We fall short. We fail. Our idealistic hopes are replaced with broken realities. We all have them. None of us is perfect (Romans 3:23).
And yet…
We are made new, washed clean, given unending grace with each new day (2 Cor. 5:17, 1 Cor. 6:11, Lamentations 3:22-23).
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We live in a “selfie” world. A world obsessed with self and fame and the stuff of this world. Our view of ourselves can be so tainted by comparison, and our lives and hearts and minds can get so sucked into this empty vortex of fleeting everything that we can lose sight of how God sees us. How God pursues us. How God loves us so…
I took this photo just moments before I walked down the aisle – the only few moments of the day that I was alone and had some short but sweet time with the Lord.
Those moments were filled with such gratitude. I wanted to snap this photo, to capture this moment, this epic moment for which I had waited three decades…
I had found the one whom my soul loves. And I was about to get to fully receive the gift that he is. To me. From God. In an beautiful ceremony and with a beautiful reception that is just a small foretaste of the wedding that is to come with my true bridegroom in Heaven – who, despite any falling short or falling away on my part, continues to pursue me faithfully.
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I love this photo of Clay, my groom, at the sight of me, his bride, when those double doors opened and I was revealed to him for the very first time on our wedding day…
… because that is exactly how Christ sees us: as a bride presented to her groom on her wedding day..
dressed in white.
Weddings are such a wonderful picture of a greater hope that we have here on this earth – that of a wedding with Christ promised to us in Revelation 19 that will be the perfect union. We will be presented to our bridegroom, holy and blameless, joined together with him, finally, forever for all of eternity.
That greater hope, that greater promise, that greater design is one we don’t have to wait for. He has given us that hope and that truth now.
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My love story certainly didn’t turn out how I had imagined. I certainly didn’t think I would have to wait until I was 30 to get married. But you know what? God’s plan? So. Much. Better. Than my own.
I would truly wait for Clay all over again. In the time that I did wait for him, of course I made mistakes, of course I fell short of God’s best… and yet… God was working on my heart and in my life to make me a little more like him, and a little more ready for all that marriage holds.
I still fall short every day. I am still striving to be the woman of God and wife that Clay deserves. But that grace God lavishes upon us? Well, Clay has so much of Jesus in him that he lavishes grace upon me, too. And I am so glad I waited for a man like this.
No matter where you are in life – single, dating, engaged, married – His mercies are new every day. We are washed clean. Made new. Presented to our Savior, dressed in white, as a bride on her wedding day.
Hold onto the hope today.
God’s plan? God’s hope? God’s truth? God’s design? Priceless.
“Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” – Revelation 19:7-8
“I see you dressed in white, every wrong made right.” – for King and Country, Priceless
