8 Years and Counting - Claude's Thoughts for our Anniversary!

8 Years ago today we were married in the rain in Kalispell, Montana in the Rose Garden at Woodland Park in a relatively small gathering of family and friends and it seems like a lot has happened since then!   The Lord has given 5 children (one not out of the womb yet) and moved us halfway across the country (and the world if you count me moving across from Australia) taken us through financial trials where we saw firsthand God's miraculous provision, changed and renewed our thinking more and more into the image of Christ Jesus (at least we hope) and given us crash courses in marriage and parenting through His grace in the midst of the craziness of real life!  Every day is a process of being sharpened more and more (Proverbs 27:17) and it doesn't always feel pleasant but when things are sharpened there is always friction and sometimes sparks fly but in the end it results in a blade that is actually useful and not dull and worthless.  So there are plenty of sparks that fly, especially in parenting as we are sharpened more and more into Jesus' likeness but we lie in the hope that He is completing His sanctifying work in us by His grace and by His Spirit (Philippians 1:6)!

As we go into our 8th year of marriage I observe that we are only just beginning to truly scratch the surface of intimately knowing someone well and truly learning to love or beginning to love as Christ Jesus loved and loves us.  I can't imagine what it will be like to spend eternity with Jesus for whosoever believes in His death on the Cross for forgiveness of sins and His resurrection for eternal life because He's God and infinitely to be known, yet I realize just how much knowing we have here on earth with each other in our marriage.  I wonder how many marriages are terminated or end prematurely before this really happens or stagnate too and never really go deeper than whatever was gained and grown in the early years.   In some ways it's really like learning to grow up again in both cases because with Jesus we are born again and from above (John 3:3), no longer by flesh but by God's Holy Spirit and then we learn to drink milk, eat solid food, walk, run obey, be self controlled, like a child does from the time  they are born and as they grow up.  I feel like in marriage it is similar because there are no longer two, but the two will become one and learn to grow up together, no longer just as individuals but as one united front, in oneness, one person from the two.  It is truly a mystery because that's also Christ's love for the Church and that's mind blowing to think about!

But all that to say that I am honored to be married to and to have Becca as my bride and wife for the past 8 years.  God has made, is making us one more and more and has raised her and both of us up together more and more into the likeness of Christ Jesus through marriage and my earnest prayer and hope and desire is that  bring glory to the Name, to His name and that we live in a manner worthy of our calling to marriage until we see Jesus face to face in glory!

I love you, Becca!  “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” (Proverbs 31:29 ESV)