😀

I’m a happy man. Richly blessed.

In a good way, it feels like I’ve been married all my life – it feels right, something like what life is supposed to be.

In some ways I feel ready for it, in other ways I’m daunted at the challenge (living close to someone really does expose our own selfishness). Exciting times ahead :).

I’m not planning a big post, but just to get back into the way of it, a few thoughts:

My wife is afraid of underfeeding me, and I’m afraid of offending her by not eating everything (and it does taste delicious), so I’m pretty sure I’ve already put on weight [I’ve been attempting this for years now, and it took a wife barely weeks to manage it].

I relish the opportunity to serve Debbie, because in doing so I can help one I dearly love [and have a long term vested interest in ;)], but I find it a great blessing to my soul to do so too. Serving others doesn’t ever lead to us losing out. For example: Today I was trying to encourage her to do an essay that she was finding hard, and I tried to explain how we need to be thankful to God for our work (to me that’s the easiest litmus test to see how we feel about it). That, was a real reminder to myself too, and I’ve had one of the best days at work that I’ve enjoyed in months – I felt I worked well, and still came home and felt energetic. And when she seems helped too, it makes me really happy :).

The few days that Debbie’s not at home when I come home, already feel so strange, and the flat feels so cold and empty. Her place by my side is so new, yet it feels so essential. I started to appreciate how Christ must yearn for His bride, having gone to prepare a place for her He must surely desire her to be there. Few thoughts have encouraged me to pray more for the coming of Christ (specifically, as opposed to His Kingdom coming).

The devil hates Christian homes, and especially wants to stir up strife in them. I heard this in a sermon as I drove home from work yesterday, agreed with it, and saw it illustrated instantly in what he tried to provoke in my heart. To my shame I had too much of a “that’s true, but it won’t apply to me/I don’t need to worry about that yet” attitude, which just illustrates how deceitful my heart is. Knowing we’re sinners, and we’ve been forgiven so much, by God’s grace we really can bear with one another’s weaknesses and glory in their strengths.

Learning to feel more deeply, and living with someone who does feel deeply, is really making me appreciate the coldness and hardness and deadness of my heart. I’m seeing how the Lord’s at work to tenderise me.

I’m blessed with a wife who deeply wants to encourage peace, harmony, and a general happy attitude between us and all we meet with. It’s almost as though she’s pained by anything other than deep joy and satisfaction abiding in those around her – I don’t really understand it myself, can I use the excuse I’m a “man”? It’s always about positivity. Negative things are said in the most gracious, kind, positive way. Beauty is appreciated for being beautiful, so I’m starting to find a world of enjoyments I never delighted in before [as I write this, she just pulled me through to look at the sunset in the other room].

Anyway, I’m away now. The wedding photos should be available soon – send me your info if you want to get the link :). If you want to read some more, my father wrote a blog post on the wedding day.