Wordless Wednesday

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Exploring The Vows of Marriage: Divine Appointment

Taken from "A Match Made in Heaven: A Collection of Inspirational Love Stories" By: Susan Wales & Ann Platz



DIVINE APPOINTMENT

"In the beginning, God brought the woman to the man. They were alone in a wide and strange new world. They had the friendship of their Creator, they had an enemy they knew nothing about, and they had each other. God is still in the business of bringing the woman to the man, and the man to the woman. In his great grace and kindness and wisdom, He gives us to one another."

Exploring The Vows of Marriage: A Match Made in Heaven

A few years ago, my mom loaned me a book called A Match Made in Heaven: A Collection of Inspirational Love Stories by Susan Wales & Ann Platz.

This book contains two volumes of romantic stories about men and women God has brought together in marriage. Each volume is broken into the following chapters:

• Divine Appointment
• The Moment We Met
• Will You Marry Me?
• With This Ring
• I Thee Wed
• To Have and to Hold
• From This Day Forward
• To Love, Honor, and Cherish
• For Better, for Worse
• For Richer, for Poorer
• In Sickness and in Health
• As Long As We Both Shall Live

Within each chapter of the above titles are short stories about couples pertaining to that subject. At the beginning of every chapter, the authors have written a brief description of the vow, or a poem pertaining to the vow... it's hard to explain, but every chapter begins with a beautiful description of the vows of marriage broken into those small phrases and examined.

It has been on my heart as I'm preparing to become Chris' wife to re-visit each of these descriptions of the vows, and then share them in the blog world. Not only will it hold me to the accountability of re-reading these beautiful descriptions, but by re-typing them, I will be studying them more, and I hope you will enjoy them as much as I have and be as inspired as I've been by their content.

I won't be doing these Vows of Marriage posts on a specific day of the week, but as time allows, with the goal of having all of them done as soon as possible or before the wedding, whichever is feasible.

Behold my first attempt at any type of a blog button (thank you sites 1, & 2):

<a border="0" href="http://mtnmillers.blogspot.com/search/label/Vows%20of%20Marriage" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i445/mrsbsmiller/Blog%20Photos/VoMbutton.jpg"/></a><center></center>

Stay tuned for The Vows of Marriage posts.

Happy Mother's Day to the World's Best Mom!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to
The World's Best MOM (she's mine)!

She taught me about God, the Bible, faith and love

She taught me I could be anything, do anything, dream anything...

She is such a peacemaker... she is THE peacemaker in our family

Everyday of my life, she has make it clear how much I am wanted...

how much she wanted a daughter...

how grateful she is to have me...

Momma, I am SO grateful for you.

You are my best friend,

my confidant, my counsel, my support... my friend.

Thank you for loving Dad, loving our family, loving me...

We love you!

Have a wonderful day with Daddy.

I wish I could be there to celebrate with you.

Happy Mother's Day, Momma!

Button Exploration

Week In Review: May 6

This week has been a great one! For others' updates on their weeks, visit Filled With Praise.

LOW

This week, I'd have to say my Low was getting food poisoning last night. It was a really fun time (I finished my first mini tour at Old Chicago - which is so not a big deal except that it took me about a year to accumulate 10 beers, and so finishing a mini tour in the time limit of the mini tour is a fun accomplishment). The nearest Old Chicago is 60 miles away and so a friend and I drove the trek over the pass to have dinner and so I could get my last drink on the tour and come away with a tee-shirt.

Chris actually drove up and surprised us while at dinner (much more than 60 miles!!!) and I felt like the most loved girl in the world... until my dinner started to settle and I've been pretty sick ever since. This is my first experience with food poisoning and I've got to say, I'm not a fan.

HIGH

Chris and I went to St. Louis last weekend for a Bridal Shower with Chris' family and my mom flew down from Michigan to enjoy the fun as well. We had a BLAST! Below are some pictures form the weekend:

Mom and Chris at Ted Drew's Frozen Custard Stand -- If ever you're in St. Louis, Ted Drew's is a must!

The theme of the bridal shower was THE HONEYMOON (which no one told me until we got there) so all of the food had a tag from either Italy, Greece or Turkey... Have I mentioned that we are taking a Mediterranean Cruise for our honeymoon? We are SOOO excited!

Chris' siblings organized a hilarious TO-BE-WED Game (a spoof of the Newly Wed Game) where each of them asked Chris and me 10 questions separately and then they asked the other of us the questions in front of the group. Of the 20 questions, we answered 17 correctly (as in, when asked in public, I gave the same answer Chris had answered in private... does that make sense?)

It was a LOT of fun and his siblings agreed that we knew each other well enough to get married.

There was a beautiful cake there...
So Chris and I practiced cutting the cake together and feeding each other...

We received some wonderful presents...

For this gift, his aunt specifically told Chris to open it... she said she saw some tools on our registry, so this was a gift for Chris to open...
There were NOT tools in the gift bag, rather female lingerie!
It was really funny, and a tad embarrassing.

Chris' parents gave us BEAUTIFUL luggage for our trip

A fun sun hat from Chris' sister and brother-in-law for lounging on the cruise deck!

... and some more lingerie.
I will say, it does make us pretty excited for the honeymoon!

Here is my mom with the favor she got to take home from the shower:
"Love Grows Here"

Only 50 days until we get married... we are SOOOO excited!

LESSON
This week's lesson for me came from a sentence in my book-on-tape about staying grateful:
"One step at a time, and be grateful."

I am remembering these wise words in all areas of my life -- wedding preparations, teaching, end-of-the-year issues, packing my apartment to move everything into a storage unit, encouraging Chris in his last week of grad school, personal changes I'm feeling led to make...

One Step at a Time, and Be Grateful.

Staying Grateful

I heard a quote today on my book-on-tape of the moment:

"One step at a time and stay grateful."

This is my mantra from now until September... one step at a time and stay grateful. At first I thought this would be a good mantra until the wedding, but the truth is, Chris and I have a lot of things to do and a lot of transition from now until September -- and probably beyond.

My to-do list is longer than I've ever seen it before, and I'm chipping away at it one day at a time, but its hard to not be a little overwhelmed with all that needs to be done in the next 31 days (when I should leave for Michigan).

As of now, there is no end in sight...


*~ One Step at a Time and Stay Grateful. ~ *

Pictures from here.