Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: MARRIAGE (08/25/16)
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TITLE: Is it Happily Ever After? | Previous Challenge Entry
By Nicki Jeffery
09/01/16 -
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My husband and I, prince and princess crowns on our heads, drove to the castle in the country for our wedding night. The castle was built in Australia by an English man for his fiancé. She journeyed by ship to her new home. Though magnificent in stature, the castle and the arms of this man were not enough to keep her. She returned to England.
Marriage is like this story. Not what you expect. For all your toil, your partner has free will. They won’t always respond the way you would like. You may pour everything into your union. They may walk away.
Nathan and I had a fairy tale wedding. The day dawned bright and clear. My sisters were my bridesmaids, each unique in different coloured dresses. Their groomsmen wore matching bowties. Pink, purple and yellow were the chosen colours. Our bouquets were vibrant.
From a colourful start to life together, we found ourselves thrust into a storm. For me, the world had turned to shades of grey. The miscarriage had tainted our happily ever after. But the gloominess that descended after the birth of our firstborn son was unbearable.
Like the English fiancé who returned home, my husband could have left me. He had not signed up for this. Or had he? In our marriage vows, we promised to love each other for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.
This journey into the early years of marriage has been testing. We now have two sons who are aged six and four. I am mentally well again, and colour has returned to my world. As I reminisce over photographs from nine years ago, my thoughts turn to the One who has made everything beautiful in its time (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
Where would we be without God? Psalm 139:16b NIV says, “… all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” He knows what we are going through. He makes a way.
Psalm 23:4 NIV says, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
Nathan and I met in church. We started our relationship with Jesus at the centre. We were married in a traditional Presbyterian church, friends and family smiling on. From wedded bliss to deep despair, to a settled feeling washing over me, here we are today.
No, we cannot make anyone love us. We cannot know the end from the beginning. But we can know God as Father, and trust Him to guide us. A marriage with Christ at its centre can flourish as the years go by.
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