It's Like Rain on Your Wedding Day



Today is March 8th, 2021.  Today's an interesting day for multiple reasons.  The main reason it's close to my heart is because it's my wedding day.  Laurie and I got married 13 years ago today.  It was a cold, rainy Saturday in Lansdale, PA.  A lot of things went wrong that day.  It rained.  The wedding photographer was very sick.  The power went out half way through our reception.  There were a lot of problems, but our love and commitment toward one another remained steadfast, and at the time it felt like one of the best days of our lives.  

Now, a lot has happened in 13 years.  We've had three beautiful children in two different states.  We've moved seven times.  I've had three different calls as a pastor and we've both had multiple other jobs.  I've travelled internationally a few times, to Israel and Germany.  We bought a house. Each year is somehow very different.  This last year has been perhaps the most different, as it's also marking the one year anniversary of the the Covid-19 Pandemic.  The first day we close church last year was on our twelfth wedding anniversary.  We've yet to celebrate an anniversary in person at Grove! 

There were a lot of ups and downs before the wedding, and certainly so many big changes over time after.  But the one thing that has remained consistent is our steadfast love toward one another.  

This is one thing I love about God.  God is consistent.  God is unchanging.  God is always near to us and always supports us.  Even when things change over time, God is always there.  We can count on it.  I'm reminded of a somewhat obtuse reference for modern christians, Shakespeare's 116th Sonnet:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

This poem has always reminded me of the consistency of love.  Now, this love does not bear itself out in every relationship, it can't due to our frail human nature.  But it certainly does in God.  No matter what the changes, God is always there with us.  God is always by our side.  

Would you pray with me?

God, we thank you for your steadfast love.  We thank you that you're with us through the good times and the challenging.  We thank you that you give us life beyond what we can see and imagine.  Continue to stand with us, and help us to know you are near.  Amen.  

Pastor Jason Clapper

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