"My beloved is mine and I am his" Song of Solomon 2:16
Happy Anniversary to my Beloved husband. I honor my husband this day and the life that he gave me. He was the most incredible man I had ever known and the strongest Christian I had ever met. Not a day ever went by where we didn't hold hands and talk of God, our faith, family and friends. He was greatly devoted to each.
"My beloved is mine, and I am his" Song of Solomon 2:16 "These are the words of the bride, who having come to Him upon His gracious invitation, now maketh her boast of Him. He feeds - abides and refreshes himself amongst his faithful people. This verse speaks of the bond that joins her and her beloved. He belongs to her and she belongs to him. In this sense they are one. This other person in marriage is one who completes you. This too is an allegory applied to the relationship between Jesus and His people....to us and to Him...a love that is forever and always."
Ways that I belong to Jesus; ways that "I am my beloved's" :
* I am his by the gift of his Father.
* I am His by purchase, paid for by His own life.
* I am His by conquest, He fought for me and won me.
* I am His by surrender, because I gave my self to Him.
"Blessed be to God, this is true evermore - 'I am His', His to-day, in the house of worship, and his to-morrow in the house of business; his as a singer in the sanctuary, and his as a toiler in the workshop; his when I am preaching, and equally his when I am walking in the streets; his while I live, his when I die; his when my soul ascends and my body lies mouldering in the grave; the whole personality of my manhood is altogether his for ever and ever." (Spurgeon)
Ways that Jesus belongs to me; ways that 'He is mine." :
* He is mine by connection in the same body; He is the head and I am part of His body.
* He is mine by affectionate relationship; He has given me His love
* He is mine by the connection of birth; I am born again of Him
* He is mine by choice; He gave Himself for me
* He is mine by indwelling; He has decided to live inside of me
* He is mine personally, He is mine eternally
"My beloved is mine, and I am his" Song of Solomon 2:16.This is a unity of love as God intended it. There is an exclusiveness in the relationship they have as they belong to only each other. We can also then delight that our Savior is ours as we are His. We are reminded in 1 Corinthians 6:20 and 1 Corinthians 7:23 that Christ has bought us with a price "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us". He died to buy us from death and unite us with Himself. We are His. Galatians 2:20 tells us that Christ is in us and He is ours. "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me." A beautiful picture of marriage and even more so, of our relationship with Christ and our ultimate Lover and Friend."
To My Beloved Randy, I miss every part of you. I miss you now even more than when you first went to our Fathers House. I miss sharing with you about the new journey of faith I am now on. I miss hearing you say, "I love you". I love you so much and will always love you and miss you every single day of my life, for the rest of my days. You won my heart and soul 39 years ago when we first met. You gave me hope and I could not have asked for more. You gave my world a love that I had never known and filled my heart with a love I could call my own. You gave me Christ. I thank the LORD for you, for being my greatest teacher who taught me so much on our journey together; surrender to the LORD, a servants heart. You are Jesus to me as you taught me how to love and live and you taught me how to die the same with unending love and grace. Much of my life have been formed through watching you live. As I write this I have tears of joy and each time I think of you I smile because I know I will see you again one day. Thank you for the 38 wonderful years we had together and 36 years of the most amazing marriage, years that were so full and rich and so much more than I could of ever asked for. Thank you for being a devoted husband. For being a devoted father, grandfather, mentor, Pastor and servant of Christ. Thank you for your devotion to Jesus Christ. For giving me the gift of two beautiful daughters, the gift of a wonderful son in law, and the three eautiful gifts of a granddaughter and two grandsons...all who love you so very much, and who love the LORD....and who have so many God given qualities that you have passed on to each. Thank you for your love for life and bringing joy and peace into all our lives daily. For choosing me, for believing in me, and for loving me unconditionally like Christ, for a love that grew more and more each and every day that we had together. It was a joy to always take good care of you as your wife, to know you could count on me forever and how blessed I am to know you were mine...always...til the end of time. I'll always love you...forever and always.
I am so blessed to sit here this morning and to be able to hold on to so many memories as I remember this day, February 27, 1982...as Randy and I became husband and wife. It was an unforgettable day, a day that God had appointed for us both as we often looked back and reflected on how young we were and how little we actually knew. Eventually, as we became Christians, God formed us and grew us and taught us so much on marriage, loving each other unconditionally, serving and preferring the other...putting each other before our own wants, plans and desires. How God taught me so many things I needed to know...how to love, honor and serve my husband....how with Christ...my marriage could be abundantly blessed. The beauty of fitting in with my husbands plans and to be by his side. Every answer along this journey we found in His Word and as we sought Him for strength and wisdom every season which grew richer and richer...and He gave us a godly heritage and grew our family in His glorious ways.
I am so blessed to testify to the goodness of our God, to the beautiful and Divine institution of marriage. To marriage that is a reflection of Christ and His church. His ways and Words go on living. They keep on inspiring. They will remain and challenge us to live our lives with His love, to trust in God's unfailing hope, no matter our struggles, trials, toils or losses that we may face in this world.
In this midst of my own grief...I chose to continue to follow the LORD each day and to serve Christ...to share the greatest gift of all....the gift that changed my life and my husbands life forever and into all eternity...the truth of Jesus Christ. To know Him and to grow in Christ comes with the cost of journeying with great pain in this life but through it all God uses our pain to pass on His truth to others. The truth of who He is and how God uses all that we walk through for the greater purposes of good...more than we could ever know or imagine...and I can only imagine what we will see and understand someday when we are home with the LORD Jesus Christ.
Randy was brave, loving, strong, inspiring and wise...determined, persevering, and filled with great faith. I press on each day with the hope that only Jesus can give us and with the words he always spoke to me. "We are a people of faith and we accept all that God allows and in our acceptance we will find our peace". Randy always reminded me how our faith is walked out each day through the chooses we make.
I choose this day to remind myself once again to choose to live in God's love as I think of 'love'. As I think of February. Valentines Day. Our Anniversary. As much as I loved Randy and was infatuated with him at first sight...it was the love of Christ in each of us that truly brought us together and held us together and His love taught us the purest and truest definition of love, a love that is everlasting....the greatest love..."Love suffers long and is kind, love does not envy, love does not parade itself, it is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in truth; bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails." 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
As we grew in our personal relationship with God and spent more time with Him and prayer and in the Word this resulted in a more dedicated life of trust and obedience in faith. It was so beautiful to learn that as I asked God to fill me and as I surrendered to Him fully and completely this love for Him overflowed with His love for Randy. His love for me was always was unconditional and this is where he taught me so much of Jesus' love and how it looks lived out....the relationship we had in the end was better, stronger, deeper and richer than anything I had ever known before or than when we were first married.
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him....Love is made complete..(1 John 4:16-17)
We always knew that our God-ordained love story began because of two people brought together and the desire to give up everything for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to serve only Him. A good marriage consisted of three persons - the husband, the wife and God. God invented marriage, and it is one of His greatest gifts to us. He is the One to whom we must go to for all things. His Book has the instructions and all that we need. How often it brought comfort to know that even when times of stress came or disappointment or testings came...and they do....I could always remember that God brought us together and we made our vows to not only each other but also to God. "What God has joined together, let no one separate" Matthew 19:6.
I am so blessed to have had a marriage to a man who desired to be like Jesus. A man who had a single goal to live for Christ. This is only because of two hearts that believed, trusted and obeyed God...and God blessed. I pray for each of you reading this, those married and those who know others who are married. That with God all things are truly possible. That He desires our marriages to be abundantly blessed and to be blessings for our children and others. That our marriages reflects Christ. I praise God for His plan and for the gift of the love and commitment and unity He gives a husband and wife for each other. This symbol of unity that come from their commitment to one another and also to God.
Through the many years we always prayed for God to establish and grow our marriage...and to give us wisdom to walk in the roles God had given us as a husband and wife. To first be dedicated to Christ and then to each other. Christ has been our everything....our strength and our peace...our wisdom and our guidance through all things.
I'll always love you Randy...Your life has taught me how to live today...how to love and serve the LORD...and while my heart aches it is filled with a victorious joy and my heart can rejoice that someday soon we will be reunited in the presence of the Lord whom you loved and served so faithfully....knowing that this life is not all that there is and one day very soon we will be reunited again...because one day we are going Home!
I am so thankful that God gave me you. Until we meet again I will cling to my Father in heaven. He is carrying me through. Happy Anniversary my love.
Forever & always.
Michelle A. Guerra
Comments