Saturday I am going to a wedding! I have been anticipating this celebration for months – ever since my friends, the parents of the bride, announced the good news. This wedding is special because the bride is my son’s close friend, his sister of sorts. He never had a sister. She had no siblings. They grew up just doors away from each other and shared lots of good times together.

Allison drove Aaron to school for a year before he got his license, because she is a year older. They participated in several church youth events together. She cheered him on in his sports events. He attended her choir productions. When they graduated from college they celebrated in down town Chicago at the restaurant of her choice because she graduated with the higher GPA. When it came time for her to move into her first home, Aaron helped her dad place all the furniture.

A few years after college Aaron married another neighbor – his elementary school sweetheart! Allison earned her master’s degree and went to work in Chicago. Their friendship continued, but with new challenges, the time they could spend together didn’t come as often.

Saturday Aaron will be an usher in her wedding and walk her mother down the aisle.

Their friendship, sealed while still young, has remained true.

I pray for both young couples - that years from now their love and passion for each other will have grown deep and steady, that no matter what storms threaten to pound and provoke them, that they would remain true to each other and the God at whose altar they have said, “I do.”

I pray this prayer because I know its power. Others have prayed for me and my marriage – my marriage of going-on 37 years!! I look back on the storms – how they pounded and provoked us. I think of the hard times, those times I wondered if staying together was really worth it all.

YES! – I want everyone to know. Working it out, staying together--it is worth it all.

I think of what we might have missed had we gone our separate ways after the proverbial 7 year itch. We would have never experienced the birth of our two sons.

What if we had separated after the first decade of marriage? Forgiveness and unconditional love would have never entered our relationship!

And had we chosen different paths after twenty years of marriage, we would not have built our house together, the one where we studied the Bible with other couples, the one where 36 football players lined up for spaghetti dinners, the one where friends came to pray with me when I learned my daddy had entered his last days of life on this earth, the one where church elders and architects met countless times into the wee hours of the morning designing the building where hundreds of people would eventually worship God and study His Word.

It saddens me to think that we might have hung up all our hard work, even after sharing so many blessings, and HARD ships. But we hung in there through cross-country corporate moves that separated us physically and emotionally. We remained true to our vows as we bent over our son’s very sick body and prayed him through the valley of the shadow of death. We traveled together and with our sons experiencing the beauty of God’s creation. We modeled marriage for our sons and for that can smile at the future.

I could continue with a long list of the reasons I celebrate our marriage.

What about you? Can you make a list of the good that has come from your commitment?

And if you have reached a crooked place in your marriage, let me challenge you to consider – what will your life look like 50 years from now? Recently I received an encouraging CD that I would like you to consider. It is titled

Fifty Years from Now.

Here are the lyrics to one song. Click the above title to purchase the entire CD. You will be glad you did!


FIFTY YEARS FROM NOW
Words & Music by John Mandeville, Steve Siler, & Bill Ebert

What do you do when the fire's gone and passion fades away Just being together used to be enough

But now what?

How do we feel what we used to feel

Can we learn how to care when it seems such a long way back

from here to there

Right now it feels like it would be easier

To give up and give in, but
Fifty years from now What will we remember?

Fifty years from now What will we have to treasure?

If we walk away from this

What will we have missed?

Fifty years, Fifty years from now


Dance recitals and T- ball games

The simple joys of the day

Will we let the best of life just pass us by

Graduations and wedding days

Grandkids up on our knees

Will we make a huge mistake or memories?

Do we just throw away what we started

Missing us, missing out


CHORUS


God gave us this love

We need to see it through

The moment's ours

The choice is up to me and you

LET MY CHILDREN GO

Genesis 12:51, “And on that same day the LORD brought the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt…”

Moving can be a spiritual experience as well as a physical one.

Last week a FOR SALE sign went up in front of my next door neighbor’s house. They lived in that house four years, now they’re on the move. Company transfer.

Lots of emotion goin’ on next door. Four little girls to pack up-toys, clothes, books, and memories. The baby was born here. Two of the little girls’ best friend lives across the street. No kidding- they have worn a rut in the asphalt running back and forth.

Right now they aren’t facing reality. They chose to spend the month vacationing with family. I don’t blame them. Although I have moved 13 times and now live in my 7th home, I can never get too excited about moving.

I make too many good memories and don’t like leaving them behind.

Are you on the move? Have you just moved? Do you plan on moving?

Moses’ family – that might include the 600,000 men with their wives and children— some historians estimate 3 million pilgrims crossing the Sinai! Any way his family might have had moving on their minds for generations.

Moses’ family had begged God to let them move.

Then one day the doors opened and the EXODUS occurred.

Now they were dancing and singing. The whole trip looked so exciting some Egyptians even hitched a ride into the desert, hoping to journey to the Promised Land.

The sea opened up, men, women, children, animals, and carts rumbled through and arrived safely on the other side. They watched and cheered as the waves closed. They had been set free from their past!

Moving does set us free from past mistakes and troubles. That is a positive about moving. We can run away!

Doesn’t mean no more troubles. Troubles get traded and that is what happened to the children of Israel. The sun came up one morning and it got hot. No water could be found. Children got hungry. Adults did too.

Followed by grumbling.

Has God finally answered your prayers? Has he moved you, giving you the desires of your heart? A new job, a new house, the day care of your choice, a new responsibility at church, a dream vacation, a diagnosis, healing in a relationship…

Now the challenges you face aren’t what you bargained for!

Resist the temptation to grumble and complain. Praise God for caring enough to change your comfort zone. He’s up to something big in your life. Ask Him how you can glorify Him in the midst of this difficult ‘move.’

Take Your Wait to God

Tonight our study of Hezekiah came to an end. He taught us many lessons about God’s Wait Room. While waiting we learned to worship, tear down our idols, dig deep into God’s Word, and guard ourselves.

Hezekiah’s final act in God’s Wait Room included repairing the walls that surrounded Jerusalem.

And then the enemy showed up knocking at the city gates. The enemy’s chief of staff hurled accusations, threats, and propaganda at the Israelites.

While in the wait room, have you allowed threats and accusations to weaken you. Do you allow fear and dread to overcome your emotions. Do lies that make no sense roll through your mind causing you to faint?
Hezekiah didn’t succumb to the lies. He marched right into the temple and called out to God,

“O Lord, God of Israel, you are enthroned between the mighty cherubim! You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You alone created the heavens and the earth. Bend down, O Lord, and listen! Open your eyes, O Lord, and see… O Lord our God, rescue us… then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone, O Lord, are God.” (2 Kings 19:15-19)

Has God ushered you into His Wait Room. Build your spiritual strength. Write the above prayer and fill it in with your story, your own time trials.

I know God will hear your cry. He will keep you in His Wait Room until He knows you are strong enough to face your next trial. Trust Him.

Moving with Moses’ Wife

Moses met his wife while he was on the move. Do you recall that Moses moved a lot? His first move occurred when his mother floated him down the Nile. Then he moved into the palace. His next move was not a choice he made. It was the result of a crime he committed. He moved into the desert where he stumbled upon a group of sisters shepherding their father’s herds of sheep. When they told Reuel, their father about the stranger, he commanded them, “Invite him to come and eat with us.”

The rule of hospitality in the desert states that no one should be allowed to remain alone. Survival in the desert is impossible without the help of others.

So Moses moved into the tents of Reuel and his daughters and learned to shepherd flocks of animals.

Eventually he married Zipporah one of Reuel’s daughters.

During this time in Moses’ life he came face to face with God at the burning bush where he received God’s call to liberate the children of Israel back in Egypt.

How did Zipporah respond to Moses when he announced their relocation to Egypt? She grew up as a shepherdess. She knew nothing of life in palaces. She lived her life in the open expanse of nature. How would she survive the populated streets of a foreign society?

I have had those same questions when my husband announced his career changes.

“Go where?”

“For what reason?”

“To do what?”

“I’m not familiar with their culture!”

“My sons will grow up in the midst of strangers.”

What Zipporah didn’t realize, what I didn’t understand, was the purpose for the move.

Sometimes God moves us so we can be the liberators, so we can bring the good news, so we can lead the captives to freedom.

Is God moving you? Ask Him to show you the move from His perspective?