What We've Learned

We are four short days away from this wedding and down to the wire on this blog. I was talking to Daddy about what we had left to say to your young couples and he said, "What about what you've learned through this blog?"

So here it goes. In the last 361 days, these are the things I've learned since writing this blog:

1. You can write blog every day for a year. It is absolutely possible. When we set this goal, I had some misgivings, honestly, wondering if it would be something we could complete. No worries now. There are plenty of things to talk about with regards to marriage and weddings.
2. Everyday experiences provide countless lessons. If you go back and look at many of these posts, you will see we're relating what we experienced in a day that gave us fodder for marriage lessons. Many started with "Yesterday" or "The other day." I loved how God reminded us of something within marriage through those experiences.
3. Some of our best posts were written under deadline. When we didn't remember until 11 p.m. and were scrambling to write something, and God gave us this amazing idea. Those were pretty cool.
4. That we have had such a blessed marriage. This has been a walk down memory lane for us (more about that Wednesday), and I have truly seen in writing this blog what a joy it has been, even in the trials. Plus I was able to dig up old wedding photos that I haven't looked at in years.
5. There are some funky wedding traditions around the world. I know a few of you have said the different nationalities' wedding traditions were not your favorite posts, but, wow, I learned a lot in those posts ... including how to say Happy Wedding Day in several languages.
6. Art may be hard to come by for posts, but that is when I got to be most creative. I had lots of fun searching for just the right picture or slogan to go with posts. And especially had fun creating the one with Daddy speaking to his 22-year-old self.
7. We learned gobs of new Bible verses that supported so many of these marriage posts. God is so good and His Living Word is inspiring.
8. We enjoyed getting marriage advice from our friends and family to share with you. Our friends have some great and funny ideas.
9. We cried together remembering stories, memories, people and our love for each other. What a wild ride.
10. And lastly, that marriage is a wonderful, beautiful, blessed creation of our Father God, which we need to work at every single day, but will certainly reap the benefits of. 

While this has been a formidable challenge, it sure has been rewarding. Praying, my sweet ones, that you have benefited from it as much as we have.

Discussion: Do you have a favorite blog post? What is something new you've learned in this last year?

Prayer: Father God, we just want to thank you personally for giving us so many different ideas for writing posts for this blog. We pray you have been glorified and that our children have absorbed all we wanted them to know about marriage. Father may they be blessed by the words written here. In the name of your precious Son, Jesus, Amen.