This Monday, August 25, is our 1 year anniversary!!!!!! Jeremy and I are off to stay at a borrowed condo in Pawley's Island for the next several days to celebrate. We're going to spend the next several days connecting, celebrating, relaxing, and just enjoying each other.
In light of the festivities, for all interested here's a link to our wedding pics. You'll need to select "view proofs", then use username: "shannon_judy" and password: "082507".
A year ago I was walking down the aisle, grinning ear to ear, to the sound of a woman's voice singing "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty...", and staring at my dashingly handsome groom. It was beautiful!
This was the script for our ceremony:
Jeremy and Shannon today is an exciting day of celebration, joy and a bit of stress. Marriage is designed by God to provide a safe place of love, comfort and adventure.
Eclesiastes 4:12
A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.
Genesis 2:24
This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.
Today, two individuals are becoming one. Jeremy
and Shannon are entering a covenant of marriage saying, “We are walking this path together. Divorce is not an option. We are committed to God and each other.”
Ruth 1:16
But Ruth replied, "Don't ask me to leave you and turn back. I will go wherever you go and live wherever you live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.
Earthly marriage is a great prelude to the main event of history. Human love and marriage provide us a picture of a future event. One day, Jesus Christ promised that he would return for His bride “the church.” Through a relationship with Jesus you receive not only an invitation to the wedding but a reception dinner that is truly other-worldly.
Paul in the book of Ephesians blends his conversation about marriage and the church.
Ephesians 5:22-33
You wives will submit to your husbands as you do to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of his body, the church; he gave his life to be her Savior. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives must submit to your husbands in everything.
And you husbands must love your wives with the same love Christ showed the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by baptism and God's word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man is actually loving himself when he loves his wife. No one hates his own body but lovingly cares for it, just as Christ cares for his body, which is the church.
And we are his body. As the Scriptures say, "A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one." This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Jeremy, Paul’s words here give you a clue to a happy, meaningful marriage. Love your wife the way Christ loved the church…selflessly. Shannon, you are not off the hook. You are to respect your husband. Women need to be loved. Men need to be respected. Couples that forget this, endure marriage they do not enjoy it.
Love and Respect.
Exchange of Vows
Doug
The vows affirm the covenant relationship between a husband and a wife.
Jeremy, repeat after me: I, Jeremy, take you Shannon, to be my wife, my friend and my life-partner for the rest of our lives. Before God, family and friends I pledge to you my life. I will be faithful to you in sickness and in health, in good and bad times, in times of joy and well as in times of sorrow. I promise to love you as Christ loves His church.
Doug
Shannon, repeat after me: I, Shannon, take you Jeremy, to be my husband, my friend and my life-partner for the rest of our lives. Before God, family and friends I pledge to you my life. I will be faithful to you in sickness and in health, in good and bad times, in times of joy and well as in times of sorrow. I promise to respect you and follow your lead.
Doug
In the church, baptism is the outward sign of an inward commitment to Christ. In the marriage, the ring is an outward symbol of fidelity. The rings do not make you married. They let others know that you are.
Do you, Jeremy, give this ring to Shannon, as a visible symbol of your fidelity to her.
Jeremy
I DO
Doug
Jeremy, repeat after me:
Shannon, I give you this ring, as a promise of my fidelity and as an expression of my love.
Doug
Do you, Shannon, give this ring to Jeremy, as a visible symbol of your fidelity to him?
Shannon
I DO
Doug
Shannon, repeat after me: Jeremy, I give this ring to you as a promise of my fidelity and as an expression of my respect for you.
Doug
I now pronounce you husband and wife before God, family and friends.
Jeremy, you may now kiss your wife.
I present to you Mr. And Mrs. Jeremy Mangerchine.
Now, one year later, I love Jeremy more than ever. Each day I love him more and more. My love for him changes over time, it matures, but it continues to grow. I love the man God has made him. I love the woman he makes me. I love the couple that we are together. I love our life that we've made together. I love the way God uses us to speak to each other, the way He uses us together as a team in ministry to others, the way He bonds us as one. I love having a partner, teammate and best friend to share everything in life with. There have been ups and downs this year (way more ups than downs though). We've had our share of arguments, selfish moments, frustrations etc., but we have a marriage centered on and submitted to the Lord, which gets us through all of those rough times. I love how our marriage has been a chance to realize the inner selfishness that I can be capable of and other sins that I could easily hide in my single life. I love how through marriage God has brought those things to the surface, and allowed me to experience his unconditional love, mercy, grace and forgiveness in whole new ways. I love how I experience those through Jeremy regularly when I'm not acting quite so lovable. I love how I have regular opportunities to allow the Spirit to work through me as well and show Jeremy the same unconditional love, grace, mercy and forgiveness. I love having a husband who is a gifted leader, and can lead me, our marriage and our future children. I love having someone to snuggle with all of the time. I love having someone to laugh with, cut up with, that I can do anything and everything around and know that he accepts me just the way I am, as I do him. I love the way that Jeremy and I becoming one has morphed me into a different person than I was before.
Baby, I love the amazing man that you are! I believe in you, I'm proud of you, I'm your biggest fan! I love you so much!!!!!
Lord, thank you for the amazing husband that you've given me. Thank you for the day we met at Refuge. Thank you for Jeremy's character and heart for you. Thank you for making him into a man capable of leading me and our marriage and keeping our home centered on You. God, I ask that you grow me in the areas that I am weak, make me into the woman that Jeremy needs me to be. Give me a heart that joyfully serves him, joyfully puts him before myself. Continue to fill us with grace, mercy, patience, passion, sacrificial love, and forgiveness for each other. Continue to keep us centered on you Lord. As our wedding ceremony stated let us be a triple braided cord with you Lord. Let our union be an example of you and your love to the world.
Shannon
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