My grand plans of blogging my way through our 13-month engagement have obviously utterly failed. But now that I'm 4 days out, on our 3-year dating anniversary, here's something.
But sometimes I remember to combine the spiritual with the geographical and I turn on Catholic Radio while I drive. Lately I keep hearing really on-point marriage and family talks from this one priest, Fr. John Riccardo. So the other night I was driving up north from PV and listening to a talk on Ephesians 5:21-33. I have such a love affair with this passage that it's even being read at our wedding. Click here if you want to read it real quick.
So Fr. Riccardo gave all this great insight on what the original Greek text meant when it came to the wife "submitting" to her husband, and what "headship" on behalf of the husband really means. Maybe I'll get into that later, but here's what really struck me. He said there is only one command in this passage, which is known as THE passage that tells husbands and wives how to have a holy marriage. The command is: "Husbands, love your wives."
God commands us to love so many times throughout his Word. The fact that love can be commanded gives me hope. Meaning...God would not and could not command us to love if it were simply a feeling, a rush of hormones or emotion that unpredictably fades. And that makes it more powerful and so much more meaningful! So many married couples have given us advice that basically says, "wake up every day and choose to love your spouse." I am naive and have no idea what that's going to be like, but I know Sean is preparing himself to do the same.
I've had people ask me, "are you nervous?" I'm nervous about little things going wrong on wedding day or leading up to it, the normal things that I know don't really matter. But am I nervous to get married? Definitely not. I know that even if my husband wakes up one day and doesn't feel like he is in love with me, he will choose to love me anyways. Like Christ loves the Church. And he can't love me perfectly on his own, (I'm not that loveable), but we'll receive grace from the sacrament of our marriage and be strengthened by the Holy Spirit to keep on keepin' on.
Am I nervous? Pssh...do you know this guy? ;)
