Willohroots

There have been many time I have failed to manage my anger.  Yelling at my dean was bad enough, banging my fist on his desk was way out of line.  My wife and I have had some episodes of intense fellowship.  We blame genetics.  When her fiery Italian blood is up against my stubborn Welsh bones, there is no yielding in battle.  We lived by one rule,  it had to get settled, no going to bed mad.  We were not trying to live by Eph. 4:26  BE ANGRY, AND {yet} DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger,  some times it was long after dark till we ironed out our situation.

Anger has shut my brain off many times.  When the bible tells of of the battle of our new nature against our old flesh,  memories of behavior ruled by anger shouts,”Amen!” . By god’s mercy I never killed anyone, or ended up serving time.  I sure have hurt some feelings, ended a few friendships, and turned into a primitive brute on occasion.  Studying Judo for a decade was a great help in controlling my body, but my mind still flamed on occation.

At 53 I am mellower by far.  I would hope the Holy Spirit has been working on my sanctification,  a drizzle of wisdom has been added,  and some thorns in the flesh slowed down some of the instantaneous reactions that used to get me going.  I was wrong to get angry most of the time, but not always. Often it may have been a crime of degree, as in getting angry good, getting mad bad.   About 6 years ago when I was pulpit supply at what became Dayspring,  I had an occurrence of anger provoked by behavior that would have caused Luther to draw his sword.

Dayspring is on the borderline of  densely populated suburbia and the flood plain of the Susquehanna river .  we are blessed with 3.8 acres of surprising woodlands right next to river road .  One morning as I preached from the bottom of my heart imploring the Spirit of Christ to soften flint-like hearts,  my sermon, my labor of love, was drowned out by the sound of a chainsaw.  The trustee of the church has told his nephew’s friend’s neighbor that we wanted all the trees cut down and he could have the wood to burn in his fireplace.  Although at the time the grounds were deserted 167 hours a week, this Cretan thought 11:35 Sunday to be appropriate for logging at a baptist church. 

The sermon was forgotten.  The thoughts of denuding this little patch of paradise and the unmitagated gall of harvesting God’s lumber during services was more than I could take.  Eventa are a bit cloudy as i look back, but Paul Bunyon’s pick up pulled out with amazing speed for such and old vehicle. It is likely I offered to store his saw for him in a place not normally used as a garden shed.  I returned and finished the sermon, as i remember it was on forgiveness.   Oh well.

There are still some things that get me mad.  those of you following the story here about baby Jessica know that this is an issue that raises blood preasure. [update coming soon, keep praying] 
To not feed your baby, to allow a helpless infant to starve and dehydrate, this is a crime against humanity and God .  The slowness of”the system” in dealing with an issue like this,  well it just gets me angry!  Twell me, am I supposed to pray for these people?  Really?  Can I pray a good Welsh prayer,  “Father bless them with meat to eat, enough to choke on.” I guess not.

Politics gets me mad,  I have sworn off of it.  Local politics in my area where judges sold the future of young kids for filthy lucre, that gets me mad.   People misrepresenting my Jesus, that really gets me mad.   I have been blessed never to run across one of those “Jesus hates fags’ protest groups.   The thoughts of a soldiers funeral picketed by crazy people calling themselves Baptist brings thoughts of vigilante justice to mind.

Graceshaker has a post about Liam Nelson’s latest movie.  It is a revenge flick, like one of the old Chuck  Norris films.  Get Chuck mad, everyone dies. I can’t watch it.  Too  much of the old me actually wants to bring my personal justice to the world.  The better part of me knows vengeance is not mine, but His.

What lights your fuse?  Am I the only guy with dry powder in a spark filled world?   Be honest, what sets you off?   Let us all pray to be loving, and let God be the judge.  And one more question,  is it sinful to want to see some folk on judgement day and after?  I know  God does not wish to see a soul in Hell,  but I look forward to eternal Justice.    Is that a “my bad”?

I have had the conversation, “Does God have a sense of humor?” many times.  There are too many examples of  “coincidences”  in my life that are so ironic only a loving God could set them up.  I have been served my words and my judgements on a silver platter so often it is my the “blue plate special”  at the diner of my life.   These meals have not been served with bitterness,  but with a kind, and  merciful side dish of love. 

I feel God is a master of humor.  From talking donkeys to Jesus’s commandment to the formerly blind man,  “Don’t tell anybody“,  there are things in the bible that just break me up.  A woman telling David that her husband is well named,  Adam and Eve hiding from God,  you got to laugh.  If the bible does not give examples of God’s humor to you,  what about His creation?  For every majestic creation like the eagle, there is the comic relief of the dung beetle, and other than divine funny bone, how do you explain the duck-billed platypus.?  Or my life? 

I view my life as a comedy, not in a shallow sit-com sense, but in a Shakespearean context.  A tragedy and a comedy both have elements of pathos and humor,  the real difference between them is the outcome.  A Midsummer Night’s  Dream”  has an ending that leaves the spectator with a much different feeling than does Hamlet.  The final act of the life of a follower of Jesus the risen Messiah is to be risen like Him and spend eternity with God  worshiping and praising Him, so based on that final unending act, no matter what takes place between now and then,  life is a comedy.  

This attitude helps me fight depression and gives me a positive outlook on others.  No matter how bleak the current state of events,  my faith in the coming of Christ in power and glory lets me concentrate on the final act.   As I minister to others with various degrees of effectiveness, and especially when my frustration levels climb to near the point of despair , it is good that I may get some distance and observe from the second row the play that is unfurling.  One of the theatrical presentations now appearing at Dayspring is the story of B. and M.  These are two guys who have attended services,  Bible studies, and even participated in work days and ministries, but have yet to make a public confession of their belief in Christ,  or to show that true repentance has changed their lives.  So far that is tragic.  The comedy is that they each think they are counseling the other.  

I get detailed reports from M. that B. is “coming around”  and “doing better” , and corresponding reports from B.  that he “had a long talk with”  M.  and that he sees signs of “improvement”.  Each has adopted the other as a ministry.  Now on a secular, earthy level, I am sure this is a positive thing,  but as a pastor I see the blind leading the blind.  The good part is they have bonded and are beginning to care about someone other than themselves.  There is undoubtedly progress toward a less self centered existence.  The bad news is that each feels superior to the other, considering himself a minister, and the other a ministry.    I receive these reports with great interest nodding and saying , “Oh, yes”  in a therapeutic manner as self disclosure is always an element.  The comic element is the seriousness of the report.   One would think that spiritual enlightenment lurked around the corner,  but in the last two years  or so there has been no great advancement.  The progress reports each gives the other has been mostly positive.

I am not posting anything I have not told these guys,  but like good actors on the stage they seem ignorant of the voice of the narrator as they move through the scenes of life. When I am with them, whether separately or individually,  I speak of Jesus and how he gives meaning and direction in life, how the Holy Spirit guides in wonderful ways,  how God can make a message out of a mess,  and how someday, sooner or later,  they will meet with Jesus, and at that time He will judge the quick and the dead.  Better to be quick than dead.   I read evangelism books where the hero speaks to the subject for five minutes and, Praise God! , the sinner is face down on the floor begging Jesus to save him from hell.  This does not jive with my life experience.  

So we watch the drama unfold.  Is it a tragedy?  A comedy?  If the dynamic duo described above realize Jesus is Lord and Messiah, and understand that serving Him is the true purpose of the believer,  then what a wonderful comedy it has been!  We will laugh at these two as if they were Laurel and Hardy, or Aykroyd and Belushi.  But if they continue to bob and weave around the stage, when the final curtan is lowered, what a tragedy it will be.  Two talented warm hearted men accompanying each other straight into Hell , each convinced he is somehow serving the other. 

Pray it is a comedy.  I hate sad endings.

 Have you ever had a day so packed with  emotions that there was not time enough to express or cherish them?   We are more Baptist than Pentecostal,  not prone to have emotion sway us, but to follow Paul”s exhortation, “Come, let us reason together.”   Today church was much different.   

We have started  service for  almost five years with the other elder in the church [ there were only two of us] reading a passage of  scripture I would give him ,  prayer and announcements.   Normally elder Ed would do this with out a hitch,  but words came hard, it was his last time with us.  God has called him to another ministry.  Ed is the strongest man I know.  Ed  is our local Chuck Norris,  and Chuck Norris is famous because he never met Ed on the mat.   He is so self disciplined!  It shows in his skills as a drummer, in his devotion to the Lord,  and in his ability to have victory over the donuts in the cafe’ after worship.  He has preached the Truth with conviction and force of purpose from our pulpit,  taught in our classes,  and dug into his own pocket to help some one who is down and out.  Today was the first time I saw this great public speaker struggle, not only with words but with his composure.  

I saw the strongest man I ever met cry.  His features contorted, his eyes filled with tears, and the same mental concentration that allows his 6th degree  body to break wood and stone was just not enough to break the emotions that filled him.  He made his announcement that he and his wife were moving on in love. 

 It was unexpected,  his desire was for our little body to understand that there was no conflict, no problems,  but the man who was instrumental in Ed finding salvation was offering a different ministry.  Dayspring is a mission field.  We are not your church on the corner with an established history filled with established Christians, most of us are works in progress,  and at the beginning stages at best.  We are a group saved only by the Grace of God.   We have no programs,  no set classes,  we are but two years old  this Good Friday and have seen lives change.  

Oh how I will miss my brother!  He paid all the bills,  collected the offerings, wrote checks to help people every time I asked him to with never a question.  He filled in for me when my weaker health would fail,  balanced me when I went too far ,  actually, really was my right hand man.  He moderated our meetings , and brought peace to conflicts with the skill of a Judge of Israel.   He was in fact at one point my fleece.  When the flood of change came at Wyoming Valley Baptist, and a decision was needed to be made I prayed to God for guidance and direction, and asked that if it were His will for me to be the Pastor he would bring Ed into the fold as I  was not prepared at that time to go it alone.   God sent Ed,  I never asked him to come, and lives have been changed in the name of Christ.

Another wave of emotion followed.  I preached some uplifting scripture of  hope and then asked  a couple to come up and share the hope that God had given them.  They testified to lives lost in years of addiction and gave glory to God for bringing them through, finishing by saying they were going to get married after living together for years, as that was the right thing to do before God. They were moving and real and so down to earth.  When they mentioned that on the day of my daughters wedding I was with them at 4 am praying to keep them straight and sober, I lost it.  I can not believe that my God is so merciful as to allow a sinner like  me to be a part of His plan , and be used by Him as an agent of change in the lives of His people.  Thank you Jesus. 

God can top anything, and did.  When I returned to the pulpit a guy in the back said,  “You got a guitar?  ”  I handed him my guitar and this song he had written  about God bringing him to sobriety rang out with the skill of a Nashville musician.  He had people singing along to a song they had never heard before.  It was very different, and very right for the moment.  

The level of emotion brought out some confession and established anew  closeness with some of the guys I have been ministering to opening the door to a bi-weekly men’s prayer group.  I hope the intensity did not blow the mind of our first time visitor,  he had never seen anything like this before, and neither had I.  

So transition, testimony , tears ,  joy, isn’t that life?  Ed paid me a great complement, the greatest I have ever heard, he said no one should doubt I preach the Gospel,  it shows in my life and in the the church.  I will spend the rest of my life trying to live up to those words, and will honor them only with the power of the Holy Spirit.   Isn’t God great in His mercy to be part of our lives?  Pray for Ed to prosper,  and for the men and women of Dayspring to step up.  It will take a crew to fill those shoes.

I have an issue that is really robbing me of peace and sanity.  How can a christian be mean?  I do not mean on occasion when your tooth aches and your tire goes flat and the neighbors dog ate your newspaper.  I am asking about those people who wake up mean and go to bed sour. People who neighbors avoid,  who make terrible bosses,  who discourage and/or belittle others.  I have no doubt you have met one.  Almost every church has a few, some churches have a bunch. 

How is this possible?  And worse,  The  Barna survey of young people said this,    

“One of the groups hit hardest by the criticism is evangelicals. Such believers have always been viewed with skepticism in the broader culture. However, those negative views are crystallizing and intensifying among young non-Christians. The new study shows that only 3% of 16 – to 29-year-old non-Christians express favorable views of evangelicals. This means that today’s young non-Christians are eight times less likely to experience positive associations toward evangelicals than were non-Christians of the Boomer generation (25%).”    http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/16-teensnext-gen/94-a-new-generation-expresses-its-skepticism-and-frustration-with-christianity

   One explaination is, we deserve it.  This is what frustrates me most, the group of people who brag the most about the bible act as if they have never read it.  Our Savior and His apostles taught well, but we seem to be failing the test.  We are not practicing His Christianity.

If you believe as I do , that Jesus was more than a teacher, more than a man,  that He taught with authority born of His position,  I would think you would be serious about this one.  Forgiveness is not an option.

Do you need an M.Div. to get this one?  You do not need to break it down into Greek or “unpack” it.  This is not about reciprocal behavior, the other parties participation is not required.  Be honest, do you see people in church, all of them, doing this?

I ask because people are sensitive.  How many mean people in a church does it take to drive a seeker away?  One.  It is not fair,  but if one person hurts the sensitive feelings of a broken person who has crawled into church for the first time in a long time, or ever,  that person’s chance of remaining to hear the Gospel is greatly reduced.  How many mean people does a child need to have contact with before he/she learns church is a bad place? 

I need God’s mercy every step of my life.  If I understand this verse,  if I show mercy to others, God will show mercy to me.  Is my lack of seminary training blinding me to something?  It does not say to withhold mercy from gays or pregnant teens or the addicted.  God loves mercy.

Since we are all sinners saved by His grace,  and we sit at the feet of the Messiah to be taught, how do we all fall short of His words from Matt. 7?

I  take the words of Christ quite literally , if we judge others, a job that, by the way Jesus says He did not come to do,  John 12:47, I will be judged in like manner.  When I think of the most judgemental people I have met, many are legalists  who go to a Christian church.  No one could stand up to the level of judgement they render, and Jesus  says that is the level used to judge them!  I want to judge mercifully, if at all. 

So are these unmerciful self appointed judges Christian? How can we possibly tell?  Still in Matt. 7 The words of  the Savior:

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but

inwardly they are ravening wolves

 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.  A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither [can] a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.  Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.  Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.“

What fruits?  The fruit of the Spirit,  Gal 5  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,faithfulness,kindness,

goodness,gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Sour grapes and lemons need not apply.  I write this because the truth is that if we followed Jesus’s teachings everybody would want to hang out with us. Churches would be packed, children would keep the faith of their parents, and none of that is happening.  We are not spreading as we should, it is time to take stock.  Do you think the problem is with God?  His Word?  Or could it possibly be us?  Instead of being fruitful we have cheapened our relationship with God by adding legalism.  We were warned about this by paul in Collosians 

“If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world,

do you submit to regulations– “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch”  These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism  and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”

Many of us are just not practicing Christianity.  We are in a self-made religion that got away from what He tryed to teach us.“ Love God, Love your neighbor.”

Almighty Father, Creator of all created, forgive us, and guide us in love, to love, by Your love,  for You are love.   Amen

http://michaelkrahn.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/evolution.jpg

M. Krahn has some good posts about evolution.  This post is not about evolution, it is about intellectual freedom and freedom of speech,  my freedom of  speech, and yours if you hold the same opinions as do I.   

If you have an inward desire to be abused and instantly labeled an uneducated foolish hater,  just question the Theory of Evolution.  It is not necessary to deny  it, just question it, or emphasize the word theory, and, in most circles today,  everything else you have to say on any other subject will be discounted no matter how wise or well formed. 

Why has this become the Shibboleth of intelligent conversation?  Why is it more appropriate to say abortion is good, or God is dead, or republicans should be exterminated?  There is no more egregious faux pas  in the halls of academia than to suggest Evolution may be a dead end street.  One would assume all educated people are 100%  convinced Darwin opened the doors of understanding, but hold on, it just ain’t so! 

I have heavily edited Susan Mazur’s article from Scoops.  It is not for Creationism, don’t take it wrong, these people may or may not be believers in God the Creator as I am, but they are not Darwinists either, read on. 

                                                             THE ALTENBERG 16

                                Will the Real Theory of Evolution Please Stand Up?

                                             By SUZAN MAZUR

                                   AN EXPOSÉ OF THE EVOLUTION INDUSTRY

               BEYOND DARWINSIM

“Unless the discourse around evolution is opened up to scientific perspectives beyond Darwinism, the education of generations to come is at risk of being sacrificed for the benefit of a dying theory.”
– Stuart Newman, New York Medical College

              “There has never been a theory of evolution.” – Cytogeneticist Antonio Lima-de-Faria, Evolution without Selection

                 “It works by selection of traits produced by random variations in the genes. That’s essentially Darwin’s hypothesis. I think not. . . . There’s                                  something wrong with the theory. It goes deep.” –Jerry Fodor

Here are more things “smart guys” say.

                    ”   He told me that if what is causing change is not selection, then maybe it is some laws of organization, but that “basically I don’t think anybody                    knows how evolution works.”

   “The heritable traits, features of biological organisms – complex or simple – change over time. They change as a function sometimes of variables or other god knows what.”

“But the question that evolutionary theory is about, as opposed to questions about where did life start or something of that sort, the question of evolutionary theory is about when you get these changes in the inheritable structures of organisms – where do they come from? What are the controlling variables? “

”  Darwin doesn’t explain how life begins, “Darwin starts with life. He doesn’t get you to life.”

    So these guys have questions, more than questions, they see the holes in the logic.  All these men are very educated in the field but the article even says they must be careful  to mind their tounges . One more quote. 

     Stanley Salthe, a natural philosopher at Binghamton University with a PhD in zoology – who says he can’t get published in the mainstream media with his views – largely agrees with Lewontin. But Salthe goes further. 

“Oh sure natural selection’s been demonstrated . . . the interesting point, however, is that it has rarely if ever been demonstrated to have anything to do with evolution in the sense of long-term changes in populations. . . . Summing up we can see that the import of the Darwinian theory of evolution is just unexplainable caprice from top to bottom. What evolves is just what happened to happen.”

”    But neither will most science blogs report there’s a paradigm shift afoot because they share the same ideology as the corporate media. At the same time, the Darwin industry is also in bed with government, even as political leaders remain clueless about evolutionary biology.

      ”  Thus, the public is unaware that its dollars are being squandered on funding of mediocre, middle-brow science or that its children are being intellectually starved as a result of outdated texts and unenlightened teachers.  ”

So will this be reported or taught or mentioned?  No.  The truth is Darwinism is the anti God.  For now.  What is important is to be anti-God, not to be honest or correct or well educated.  

I am willing to listen to other opinions about most subjects.   If the sources above say there are areas of evolution to be debated, I no longer want to be treated like hill-billy cousin with a second grade education when I weigh in with some of my opinions.  Here  they are.

• God created life.
• Each specie is designed for a niche by a loving Creator.
• Science can not, and should not be expected to explain everything.
• The wonders of nature show the Glory of God.
• Jesus to this day holds all things together.
• Belief in God is not a sign of low IQ.
• God explained all this and more in His Word, the bible.
• God created the duck-bill platypus to mess with zoologists who believe in evolution.
• Man is not evolving, man is devolving further away from God.
• You do not have to believe this,  the bible says some will not.    

Don’t let anybody tell you the case is closed on evolution,  it really is just a theory.

   This is one of my favorite t-shirts from the nice folk at Mental Floss. http://www.mentalfloss.com

Mental Floss makes my family’s favorite board game creatively entitled, “Mental Floss”.  We like it better than Trivial Pursuit, a game my family refuses to play with me unless they get to ask sports questions. Always, exclusively, sports questions, and I do not know any answers to that subject.  I have learned that by saying “Ty Cobb” [ I do not know who that is] I get one right once in a while and really frustrate them.  I excel at trivia because I have always been a reader.  I was sick a lot as a kid, hence the lack of sports knowledge, and amused myself in the pre-video game, three channel days by reading. 

So I ended up knowing a lot.  My dad called me a  “walking  encyclopedia of useless information”.  My eclectic self education  made me stick out in class at school, not as far as I stuck out in gym, [Never ask a gym teacher for a set of written rules for basketball or baseball], teachers loved me or hated me.  I was that kid you hated in geography who had read every issue of National Geographic from 1920 on.  I was the one in social studies who new about the Hottentots,  the one in English Lit. who enjoyed Beowulf. 

Having knowledge without wisdom or even maturity is like having a full tank of gas in a sail boat, nice to have but of no earthly use.  I argued with anybody that would listen that Pluto was not a planet.  In my far less than humble opinion, Pluto just didn’t have the chops, it was a wandering ice ball.  And now after all these years, I have been proven right!  So what.  I value “being right” less than I once did.  There was a time in my life I would rather be ‘right than relational’.  That is a psych term that means someone  will burn their  friendship with you before backing  down on something when convicted of an issue.

I should not feel too bad about this, it seems it is the Christian way.  Pick an issue,  infant baptism,  divorce,  tongues,  authority of the local church, Calvinism or the color to paint the lobby.  Christians divide.  So when we stand before the Great White Throne and Jesus Himself says,”I gave you two rules, love God , love each other, how do you think you did?”  we will be able to answer,  ” Lord, I never baptised anybody under five, I never remarried a divorced person,  I pray in English, nobody told my church what to do, Once Saved Always Saved, and the lobby is a pleasing peach, although we had to throw Sister Emma out of the church over that one.”  Do you think it will matter at that point?  Are those answers to His questions? 

I have fought over many things.  I always said in school there are 6 continents.  Europe and Asia are one continent and Genghis Khan proved it.   I have fought for what I thought was right in church.  Biblio-idolatry and legalism are not Christianity.  Christ proved it.  But now I am getting to an age, or stage where I would rather be relational than right.  There are still some things I will hang onto,  the pillars of the faith, but there are more and more issues that even if I will not agree with you, I will smile, nod and do my best to love you. 

Being right matters less these days.  Seven continents, six continents, who cares.  Nine planets, eight planets, I still need to do my laundry on Monday.  There will be rewards in heaven,  crowns I am told.  I doubt we will earn them by the correctness of our positions.  I will bet I’m right.

The Love of my Life is Fifty!

Fifty years old.  I am in love with a beautiful mature woman.  For 29 years I have watched her mature in Christ,  and become a servant/minister to her family and her church.  Allow me to introduce you.

Dawn is the sort of person people talk to.  Strangers, customers, church people, relatives that gave up on me long ago.  She is in a word, lovable.  There is no harm in her, nor thought of malice.   She is kind to animals and people alike, finding a way to defend the behavior of everone but me.  That is OK,  her job, or part of it is to improve me.   God has used her mightily in that task, I know without her I would be nothing. 

Dawn manages my business, plays keyboard for the church,  is very involved in the lives of our adult daughters, takes care of a pack of dogs, teaches children’s church  [every Sunday for a while now], cleans the church,  [every week for a while now],  puts the praise team music in order,  finds new songs,  greets people, prays for them, and wonders why she is tired. 

This woman has been with me through cancer,  paralysis,  car wrecks, career changes,  death of my family, economic hardships  and depression.  With me, close with me.  Any of you only children out there get how important that is to us.  

God has blessed me with this amazing woman,  held us together, provided for us, and grew us into His servants.   He has given us an opportunity to show our love for Him by loving others.    I long for the day I can say, from Song of Songs:

My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. 

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over [and] gone;
 the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing [of birds] is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines [with] the tender grape give a [good] smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
O my dove, [that art] in the clefts of the rock, in the secret [places] of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet [is] thy voice, and thy countenance [is] comely. 

I have learned the truth of Ecclesiastes 4                                      Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. 

For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!
Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone?
And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him–a threefold cord is not quickly broken. 

God has become the third strand in our relationship, the strong strand.  To show us His strength He has allowed us to go through some trials and troubles, but never to go through them alone. 

I read this passage at our wedding,  some thought it risque, but not with the depth of love behind it.      Song of Songs 4              

“How beautiful you are, my darling, How beautiful you are! Your eyes are {like} doves behind your veil; Your hair is like a flock of goats That have descended from Mount Gilead.
“Your teeth are like a flock of {newly} shorn ewes Which have come up from {their} washing, All of which bear twins, And not one among them has lost her young.
“Your lips are like a scarlet thread, And your mouth is lovely. Your temples are like a slice of a pomegranate Behind your veil.
“Your neck is like the tower of David, Built with rows of stones On which are hung a thousand shields, All the round shields of the mighty men.
“Your two breasts are like two fawns, Twins of a gazelle Which feed among the lilies.
“Until the cool of the day When the shadows flee away, I will go my way to the mountain of myrrh And to the hill of frankincense.
“You are altogether beautiful, my darling, And there is no blemish in you.

No blemish in her,  that is the truth.  Happy Birthday my love,  may God Himself give you the desire of your heart.  Amen