Marriage Is What Brings Us Together Today...And Love True Love

Tim and I were invited down to Iowa for the wedding of our friends Andrea and Blake. They attend church at our congregation here in Milwaukee. When we first met this (dating) couple we knew we would love them. Blake has a Coexist sticker on his car, is an extremely deep thinker, and is also a very recent convert to our church. Andrea is getting her Masters in History, has worked in jobs involving social welfare, and loves to travel internationally doing good things for others. They are two bright, open-minded, loving, happy, intelligent people and I love spending time with them. I was ecstatic they invited us to their wedding. I was even more ecstatic when we actually witnessed the wedding. It was the most beautiful wedding I have ever attended. Not only was the setting gorgeous (white gazebo on a fall day) but the program was beautiful. Their vows were lovely and deep. I wish the temple had vows, I think it would make people think more about why they want to marry the person across from them. When you have it articulate it in words, it gives you clarity. They did such a great job. I keep bugging them about this but their guests were very good looking. I've never seen that many good looking people in person all at one time. As Andrea reminded me, Jack Kerouac said, "So I rushed past the pretty girls, and the prettiest girls in the world live in Des Moines.”
  Andrea and Blake asked me to share a small message at the ceremony to help introduce all of their friends and family to other members of our church. It was an honor to be part of such a special and beautiful wedding.

Wedding Message: "I saw this quote last week and it made me think of the two of you. “Maybe some girls are not meant to be tamed. Maybe they are supposed to run wild until they find someone just as wild to run with.” Andrea is an adventurous woman and now she has Blake, a kindred spirit, to go with her on all of her adventures! I can picture them happily scampering around the globe together. I met Andrea and Blake this last year at our Mormon congregation in Milwaukee.

In the Mormon faith, marriage is believed to last for eternity, not just for this life. We also believe in life before death or eternity and we know this life is unpredictable. I think that knowing we are ALL children of God increases our ability to see the divine in others and be more patient with ourselves and them.  Five years from now you may say “this is not the same person I married.” And in ten years from now you may say it again. And it will be true. And it will be true that you are not the same person either. We all change throughout our lives. Through your marriage with each other and your joint marriage with God, you can help make those changes for the better.

Isaiah 48:10 - Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.

God will put each of us through a refiner’s fire in hopes that our experiences help us become the best version of ourselves, our truest version. An honest relationship with God and with each other will bring this out of you through marriage.

We must be true to our aspirations for we become what we reach for. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said “what we are worshipping, we are becoming.” So worship God and all the good that He embodies and you will become the divine person that He created you to be.

 Life is a long and sometimes a difficult path to tread but it is better to tread it together than alone. Mark Twain was not a religious man but he was a romantic. His wife was his religion in a way. He wrote a short piece called the Diary of Adam and Eve which is mostly comical in imagining how they must have learned to get used to the concept of marriage and living together. But in the end Twain hits on a beautiful truth. Eve dies first and Adam mourning her loss says, “After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden WITH her, than inside it without her. For wherever she was, there was Eden.” 

Congratulations as you move forward intertwining your existence for all eternity and continually cultivating the divine potential in one another."