Marriage, Meaning, and the Lover of Souls

2 “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!” (Ecclesiastes 1:2)

So I’m getting married. No one tells you how different this is from the whole of human experiences. The planning, the delegating, the stress over small details. Many will tout this as the single greatest event in your human experience. No pressure there. Others will recount the tale of their big day with a twinkle of nostalgia that only a being still very much in love can tell. For me, it is a culmination of a lifetime of broken experiences and lavished grace. There were periods of my life spent wondering if I was capable of meeting the demands of love. While I am still not so certain in my abilities, I am certain of my Father’s stubbornness and while I do not whole heartedly believe in the institution of marriage, I do believe in the liberating movement of grace.

This grace is understated in significance. We throw it around casually as if it is something we can ever begin to explain or assign limits to. Yet this is the very thing that beautifully bonds two broken souls into one. It is a dance of two crashing together in the most inexplicable of ways. Is not it like our Father – the great orchestrator of lost narratives – to redeem what man tarnishes so casually. He directs meaning to the meaningless and purpose to the lost. Hallelujah breathes this fragile heart lost in His sea of humble glory.

Yes, no one tells you of the burden of love, nor do they rush to whisper of the all in gamble that marriage, lasting marriage, demands. But as we sit washed in unmerited favor, we exhale softly of this sure gamble of restoration. This is sure to restore and save in ways I cannot envision this hour. To our great lover of souls be praised.