Pretty soon my marriage will be old enough to get it's driver's permit. But for now, it's merely entering the teens for the first time. It's voice is changing. It's becoming who it will be. Infants spend their earliest years changing rapidly from day to day, month to month and year to year. The changes are constant and the photographs taken only weeks apart reveal very different children than the ones staring back in the picture. Then changes become less often in their frequency, but more intense in their potency. The differences between an 11 year old and a 13 year old are not as severe as those between a 1 year old and a 3 year old, but the depth of the change in the teenager is intense. These changes are making the child into who they will be, what form they will take and largely retain.
My marriage is similar. It survived the frequent changes of infancy and is now beginning to get some solid legs underneath it, giving way to the shape of what it is more likely to be and the form it will more closely retain for years to come. I like where it's been, love where it is and look forward to where it's going. I love where God has my wife and me in relation to Him and in relation to each other. We are both growing and stretching and unifying and solidifying around the changes He has introduced that have potency in projecting the future course of our family.
The Van Voorst family was established 13 years ago this day and it is more firmly established now than it was then. What it is and what it will be and what it will do and where it's all going is clearer now than it was then. I love what God has given us and where He is taking us. I love being a Van Voorst and am excited by the opportunity to minister to my great-great-great grandchildren by living my life now by faith in God. I am preaching to descendants I will never meet by loving the children I see every day. What it means to be a Van Voorst in 2020 will mean something for what it means to be a Van Voorst in 2120 if the Lord's return should still at that time be pending.
God uses marriage as a microcosm of what the macrocosm should be. In the opportunity to serve my family as Head, I am seeing a preview of what it looks like to live in the world where everything is brought under its rightful Head, Jesus.
I love being married. It's just the best and I love the partner God has given me to experience it with. She is my best friend and my favorite person in the entire world. 13 years ago today I watched her walk down the aisle and through tears and snot, I received her as a gift. We both made our vows before God, family and friends and have been increasingly blessed ever since. She is my family.
We nearly set our reception hall on fire that night little knowing that God would be using us to set the world ablaze for years to come. May the world feel the heat of what we are doing under our roof as we send flaming arrows flying from our home and may the light being cultivated in our midst shine brightly for years to come for His glory, our neighbor's good and our gratitude.
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