We all got a good laugh at Bobby's "She's totally hot" line in his story
Bobby and I had the opportunity to share part of our story at our wedding, just before making our marriage vows. Our worship pastor Mike Cosper asked us to each briefly describe how we met and then list five things that we love about each other. Bobby and I wrote and submitted our stories separately so that we each heard the other’s story for the first time during our wedding ceremony.
Our motto at My Song In The Night is “Helping you express words of worship and testimony through songs and stories” because words are important (James 3). And not a single day has passed (since Bobby asked me to be his gal) without him overwhelming me with beautiful words of affirmation and thankfulness for God’s grace to him in letting me be his wife.
If you’re a pastor or anyone who officiates weddings, I invite you to use this brief testimony as a template, and ask your groom and bride to write something of similar length to incorporate into their ceremony. It will bless their guests, each other, and you. And if you’re married, I invite you to use this as a template for celebrating each other on Valentine’s Day, birthdays or any day. Never forget the importance of telling and re-telling your story to each other:
Our pastor Mike Cosper looks on as we begin to celebrate at the wedding's conclusion
“Bobby and I have been growing as friends since I first met him and joined his community group last August 26th after I moved back to the area. However, we sort of missed each other as potential mates while being preoccupied with other relationships until it was God’s appointed time to turn our hearts and eyes toward each other.
On May 14th, I found my best friend in Bobby when he emailed me with some encouraging feedback about my latest song (he was apparently privy to my love of words and music and strategically started a conversation using encouraging words about music that was very personal to me). That started a beautiful, life-giving, Gospel-centered, love-blooming conversation that has not ended and I hope never ends. He “gets” me! With Bobby, I quickly found that I was completely free to by myself, encouraged to be myself, appreciated and celebrated in being myself as God made me. Bobby speaks my language. . .
There are so many things I love about Bobby, my best friend, and today I’m marrying him because:
1) Bobby loves Christ and His Church and longs to be employed by God in His service all the days of His life, and he consistently lives out the gospel in humility, overflowing in gentle kindness and beautiful demonstrations of Christ’s love through sacrificial giving and service.
2) Bobby is an excellent communicator: a beautiful writer, a deep thinker and a patient, caring listener.
3) Bobby deeply loves his children. He fathers and pastors them with all of his heart.
4) Bobby has endeavored to make it abundantly clear EVERY day that he treasures every part of me and is so thankful for God’s grace bringing me to him, and that he only wants to love, serve, nurture, and protect me as best as he can, as I deserve to be cared for.
5) According to him, Bobby loves everything about me. (I thought this impossible given, well, ME!) And he called me “beautiful” and “gorgeous” and “darling” more times in the first two weeks we were dating than I’d heard in my entire life up to that point. And he meant it every time, with all of his heart.”
~~~
It was a beautiful and fun experience—a memory I hope to never forget. It was also interesting (and funny in some parts) to hear the differences between our accounts of how we met and the differences between the things we love and appreciate most about each other. I remember, specifically, how our guests laughed when Mike read the last of Bobby’s favorite things about me “I mean, c’mon. Just look at her: she’s totally hot!” And my face was then totally red.
But I loved hearing this from Bobby because, as every single one of my husband’s affirming words has done for me before and since that moment, those words brought a little more healing and life to my heart. My husband has consistently and clearly communicated his love for me day after day. Because words are powerful, I praise God for a husband who wields them well and carefully cares for me in word and deed, as he promised he would on September 25, 2010.
Listen to the wedding hymns we each wrote here, which our Sojourn Music friends performed at our wedding.
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