Living In Hope
Yes, I’m counting down to the wedding. Yes, it’s 18 more days to till we say ‘I do’. Yes, everything is pretty much sorted out (we hope).
Yes, we’re still planning to get married.
Time certainly has taken on a warp-speed effect the past few weeks and the days seem to by whizzing past us. I believe neither of us is really able to gauge the effect of this big day as of yet. We seem to be working on automatic mode to complete the tiny details of what needs to be done. Perhaps none of this will hit us until after the wedding, when we’re just sitting there looking at each other and then realising…
OK. That’s done.
The prospect of the wedding and being married is enthralling to both of us. We certainly are looking forward to the idea of being man and wife. And yes, we have these great big dreams about how it’s going to be and how everything will be happy and joyful and nothing can go wrong. That the problems that affect other couples, married or otherwise, will not be an issue for us. Are we naive to believe that we won’t have difficulties in our married life? I think not. And yet I do believe that within both us lives a great sense of hope that even in the midst of all the difficulties and turmoil, we will figure a way out of it and emerge triumphant.
We certainly hope so.
I’ve been reading with great interest a few of my friends blogs. Somehow the topic of relationships remain a central point to most of them. Those who have loved and lost, those who have loved and let go, those who are still in love and trying to make some sense of it, those who are still in love and continue to be in love. I still have friends who good-naturedly ask me if I still want to get married. I have friends who are so excited at the prospect of me getting married that people might be mistaken to think that they are the ones getting married. I have friends who have plenty of words of wisdom. And friends who quietly share in my happiness.
I love them all.
The past few weeks have opened my eyes to the many wonders that being in a relationship offers. No, not “that” wonder. But truly, it has been an opportunity for so much growth and self-realisation. Learning to spend more and more time with one person, I’ve come to learn how much of my old-self I need to die to, in order that new ways of living and loving can start. That while it is true that in any relationship, there is always an element of give and take, I must first learn to give without expecting to take. That even after a fight, it is possible to look at the other in the eye, to say ‘I Love You’, and to mean it with all my heart. To know that love isn’t always about what I get out of it, and not even what I give into it, but that it is just what it is; Love.
If God is Love, and Love is God; then God is God, and Love is Love.
To myself, the constant reminder of what a wonderful journey I have been allowed to live, is the constant love that I have received from all those around me. Love that I probably do not deserve. But then again, love doesn’t count the cost. Nor does it keep score. And if I have been shown this love, who I am to deny it to those around me? It matters not if the person is someone I do not like, God sends the sun and rain on the good and bad.
In as much as I receive, that is as much as I should give. For in the end, I am nothing more than what He gives to me.
And I have come to see that even this marriage, this wonderful person that I will share my life with, is something that He gives to me. And if He gives it to me, it can only be good. It is now up to me, and to us, to make sure that what we are given remains good. I do believe that if we remain in Him, and Him in us, then come what may, it WILL be good.
That is the hope. *smile*
