It was a restaurant in the Cherry Creek shopping area of Denver. A trendy Italian menu and ambiance provided the perfect backdrop for an anniversary dinner. Our 31st.
The table we were allocated was perfect. The wait staff found the perfect balance of attentiveness and privacy… and our evening evaporated into conversation, reflection and thanksgiving. A bright red Moleskine provided the canvas on which Mary logged the highlights of another year of experiences. Some expected, some wondrously concealed, some uninvited and difficult. But all of them… together.
Mary looked beautiful. More elegant. More mysterious. More profound and rich than the day I gazed down a church aisle at her in Franklin, Michigan.
From laughter to tears our reflections chased our emotions. We were surrounded but alone.
We marveled at the journey. The depths, the heights… charted and uncharted.
I loved her then… but never more than now.
And in that moment, that precious moment… I thought about the fact that we… you and I… are the bride of Christ. His Church, the body of believers. I reflected on the depth and beauty of His love for me, for us. Then, in that moment I gazed into the eyes of my love and I thought for a powerful, undivided moment, about how beautiful my wife was. I thought about how proud I was to have Mary as my wife. She had honored me with her fidelity, her tenderness, her discipline, her preparation, her selflessness, and her appetite for more.
I want to be that kind of bride.
Devoted. Enthralled. Captured to the core. Inquisitive. Moved.
This is what Jesus had in mind… for husbands and wives… as a trailer for the full-length movie, a preview of the beauty of our life with Christ.
He is our bridegroom. Provider. Protector. Advocate. Companion.
His Church. His bride.
Another year. More beautiful, more committed, more prepared, more tender, more trusting…
I got a glimpse… of the bride that we should be…
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