Saturday, March 26, 2005

Happy Easter!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Easter!

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Wedding Bells

Pardon the long hiatus. I just came back from my sister's wedding. It was a beautiful wedding, and it's extra-special, well, because it's my sister's wedding. :) It was a good time to recall and reminisce about my own wedding and my wedding vows. Most of all, I'm reminded about the church being the bride of Christ, which goes to illustrate just how holy and beautiful marriage is in the eyes of God.

  "Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
    the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
    and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
    and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
    with fine linen, bright and pure"
- Revelation 19:6-8

Indeed, at the end of time, the church is to present herself as a beautiful spotless Bride to Christ. I read a book called Sacred Marriage recently, where the thesis is: what if marriage was never meant to make you happy, but rather to make you holy? Having being married recently (or perhaps not so recently), I can attest to the difficulties and challenges of marriage. There's nothing like marriage that'll change someone to the core of their beings. But, overcoming these challenges produces great rewards: Holiness. Humility. Dependence on God.

Marriage truly moulds us to be more holy, so that at the end of time, we will be presented as a beautiful spotless bride to our Lord. Now I know why the Psalmist said:

"It is good for me that I was afflicted,
    that I might learn your statutes."
- Psalm 119:71

So, despite all the hardship I go through, I always think and remind myself about marriage from God's point of view. Only by focusing on the cross do I see hope in marriage, and in all of life. This is not to say that marriage is hard work all the time. I do enjoy my marriage and the many joys that it brings; and I would not exchange my marriage for anything else.

I'll end this post with my favorite description of marriage, which I heard during a seminar by Paul Tripp. Dr. Tripp described marriage as:


Fallen man, and fallen woman, in the hands of a faithful God.