Toast to the newlyweds

This that my oldest daughter wrote for my youngest daughter are such good words even for me that I am recording them here to read again and again.

Grace and David,

I'm proud of you! You are courageous and adventurous. And I see your hearts and
they are strong and eager and full of life!

And you got here! The work is done. The week is done. The ceremony is done. The summer is done. Your journey to this beginning of life is done. And we're here to celebrate with you and--finally--after a long hard summer you are feeling all our love. What a good moment! Your life has just begun.

You have no idea right now what the shape of your life is going to be, and if you sat down right now with a pen and a paper and each other and you looked at your hearts and you wrote a story it would not be as good as the one that's going to happen. So don't do that. Just live, and see where life takes you.

I want to ask you to spend time paying attention to your own hearts and to each other and to your marriage and to your life. When I say pay attention I mean let go of any agenda you might have for what that life should look like. Let go of your expectations. Wait and see. Watch. You have been called to be witnesses to each other's life. In a way your life has become one, and in a way it never will, and your story is going to be beautiful if you keep admiring the life you find in each other, even if what you find is baffling or surprising or irritating. Keep asking "Who is this person that I married? What is the shape of his soul? What makes him resonate with Christ?"

That's all you need to ask; and then watch, as Christ makes life in you.

The thing about life is you can't stop it. Have you ever seen the grass growing through the sidewalk? Grass, tender grass, cracks concrete because life is serious business. We believe in a God who raised our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead and with him he gives us life. That much life. That kind of life. This life that you began two hours ago is that tender and that unstoppable.

You will experience sorrow, you will taste death, you will even fight sometimes. But if you will spend your marriage looking at each other, paying attention to each other, noticing what makes your spouse alive, and celebrating that, pursuing it, making space for it, you will be happy. Because life has been preprogrammed. Preprogrammed by the power that raised christ from the dead and that is enough power for anything, and that, by the holy spirit, is ours. we believe in the holy spirit, the lord and giver of life. thats yours. and you are going to live and it is going to be beautiful.

Of course Switchfoot says what I'm trying to say:

Put your hand in mine and
Put your heart in drive
What we need will find us

So let go (you have everything you need right here), pay attention, raise a glass, share a meal, celebrate your love, and then get up and do it again the next day.

To life!