It's Wedding Week! Prayers for Laura and Josh that Will Work for any Marriage
It’s finally here!
We’ve been calling this ‘the wedding of the century’ in our family, which of course it’s not, but for us right now it’s a pretty big event. Laura has waited a very long time for God’s provision. One of her favorite verses is now Lamentations 3:25, “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.” This verse among others will be hand lettered and framed as part of our wedding décor!
All the work planning a wedding would be for naught if the marriage is not built on the right foundation, which is the Rock of Christ. And so for Laura and Josh in this week before your wedding, and for you our friends, I have written these prayers.
May you place your hope, your faith, your desires for change solely on Jesus. Trust not your man, or wife, to be for you what God never intended. Jesus alone will supply all your needs. Often He will use Josh in your life and you in his, but too easily we look to another person instead of our Savior. It will happen. Don’t be surprised, just recognize it and realign and give thanks.
May you both remain teachable for all your days. Once a person or a marriage quits trying, quits learning, decides this situation or this problem or this person is too hard, death sets in and begins to steal life. “Nothing is impossible with God,” (Luke 1:37) is my favorite marriage verse. If a virgin birth was not too hard for God then my marriage, my husband, my children, my challenges, nothing is too hard for God. When we forget this supreme truth our eyes focus on the hard stuff, our teachability wanes and we become unbelievers. Keep this verse the focus of your marriage and you will experience the miracles of God at work in your hearts.
May you be quick to forgive, quick to believe the best, and quick to apologize when even a tiny bit wrong. Not falsely, not for something you shouldn’t own but for all that you should own. Nothing is more practically needed in marriage than forgiveness. Genuine humility that both admits wrong and grants forgiveness is the greatest demonstration of love in any relationship. It is life giving.
May you, Laura as a bride, be the wind beneath his wings, the one who believes in him more than any other human, continually committed to supporting and encouraging him no matter what. And may you remind him you aren’t going anywhere and never will. I pray you will demonstrate the presence of the Holy Spirit’s promise to never leave us in your loyalty to Josh.
May you follow him with grace when he doesn’t lead well and with wisdom when he makes mistakes. No leader is flawless. Every good leader learns by failing. So when he fails, and he will, give him grace to try again, encouragement to keep going, and your love that says, “I’m with you forever, no matter what.”
And as your wedding will be filled with dancing for joy over God’s brilliant plan for the two of you and for all of us who are married, may you dance frequently throughout your lives.
Our family was marked deeply by a song, Untitled Hymn, by Chris Rice in 2008 when Molly died. We sang the words in desperate faith at her memorial service, “and with your final heartbeat, kiss the world goodbye, and go in peace and laugh on Glory’s side…and fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus and live.”
On your wedding day we will experience the exuberant joy of these lines: "...and when your love spills over and music fills the night, when you can’t contain your joy inside… then dance with Jesus, dance with Jesus, dance with Jesus and live!"
May you dance with Jesus for as long as you both shall live!
With forever love and tears of joy,
MOM