“As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.” –Isaiah 62:5
It was our first debrief as a squad. One night during a time of worship and prayer, some of my squadmates began to sing the song “you’re beautiful” by Phil Wickham. (see part 1). I was standing in the back with my eyes closed when I felt the Lord prompting me to walk up to the front. I hesitated at first because, I just feel more comfortable worshipping God in the back. But for this moment I felt the Lord whisper to my heart, “Now is the time, beloved. Tonight is our wedding night!”
And that’s when I saw it…the aisle leading me to the altar.
In the last several months of the race, God has slowly been bringing me to a deeper intimacy with Him. Just looking back at the last ten years of my life I recognize different moments where God was clearly pursuing me and inviting me to marry Him. At the time I just thought, “oh well that’s a nice thought,” or “that’s sweet God buuuut I still want this over here more…” I kept brushing off His proposals, distracted by the things of this world…thinking that that kind of intimacy with God was just a “nice thought” or something that would only happen after I died and went to heaven. (Of course I’m going to marry You someday God, after all I’m part of the bride of Christ…) I never really thought of it as a here and now thing.
Yet God never relented, He continued to pursue me and send me messages of “Will you marry me?”
So one night during month 2, one of my teammates felt God saying to her that He wanted me to marry Him. I took that to the Lord and that is when I discovered He has been asking me this question for years. And as I looked back I realized that I never really gave Him an answer… I never said no but I never said yes either. So this time I decided to say yes. But… now what? What does it even look like to marry God?
And that is the wild path of discovery that I have now entered into. It’s still hard to explain and I’m still figuring that out, That night at debrief when I walked down the “aisle” from the back of the room to the front, I pictured myself meeting Jesus at the altar, my Husband. And ever since that moment I have sensed a shift in my relationship with God… a shift towards something grander and more amazing.
I am finally learning to be completely filled up by Him and only Him. This isn’t to say that I still don’t have a desire to get married in this life, but I am entering into such a deeper level of intimacy with God that I am okay with not being married. I’m learning to be okay if I never get married. Because I now have a Husband who is fulfilling me more than anything or anyone else ever could. I no longer have to feel like there is something wrong with me or missing in my life for not having a man…because I already have the greatest Man I’ll ever know.
