Jess and Mike

I had the huge honor of blessing my good friends Mike and Jessica at their wedding. This is what I wrote for them:

Mike and Jess, may you grow so deep in truth and love that your marriage has no choice but to grow and flourish into something beautiful.

And as your grow deeper and deeper into that love and truth, may your marriage become an actual living, breathing space.

And may that space that will be you marriage be so spacious, so secure, so inviting that those who are without either food or family or love be able to find both home and hope in you two.

May you perpetually be aware of the elaborate gifts God has given you and may that awareness spur both of you to live your lives with open hands with willingness to give back all that has been given to you with grace.

Jessica and Mike, may you fearlessly and uninhibitedly chase and grab a hold of the story God is waiting to tell with your life.

May you have a humble courage to live your story in a way that invites others who do not yet know God into a vibrant relationship with Him, the Living God.

May your story be irresistible to the community you’re apart of now and the communities you have yet to be apart of.

And may your children be raised in a story where the Kingdom of God present and actualized in their parents.

Finally, Jess and Mike, as you continue to work out your faith with fear and trembling both together and individually, may your marriage be the catalyst through which Christ’s character is formed for fully in you so that when people look at you they no longer see Jessica Michael Bernard, but rather God’s love manifest.

Amen.