Today my husband and I are celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary! We have been together for 15 years and it's funny how you can look back and consider a marriage one of your greatest accomplishments but they are hard work!! Words can not express how thankful I am to our most gracious Lord for all he has brought us through and continues to teach us. We love each other more than we ever did as teenagers and that is an exceptional blessing. We won't be going to dinner and a movie, no we are taking our children to a evening archery tournament in typical Fletcher family fun!
Two weeks ago I also celebrated my 30th birthday! No one seems to look forward to turning 30 but I sure did! I love that God has given me a vision for growing older. He has been teaching me so much about building lately. I am reading II Chronicles now and Solomon is building the temple. God has asked me to build our family in the same way. A thick, strong foundation, the seven pillars of wisdom for strength, and beauty to attract others and glorify God. Every furnishing is useful and has a purpose. There is a place for honor set aside for God. The blue prints match God's heavenly temple. All the materials are HIS provisions. It is built with complete reliance on Him and dedicated with prayer and praise. I am loving this analogy!
When I think how overwhelming this is I remember two things. One; Ephesians 1:17-19, "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe." It goes on to compare that power to what He used to raise Christ from the dead! What do we even need that kind of power for!? Yet, He has promised it to us. So I have everything I need but some days I tend to procrastinate in my objectives and so the second thing I try and remember is to just BEGIN. Just start....aaaannndd....go...II Chronicles 3:1 starts with, "Then Solomon began to build..." Even when I screw up there is a new beginning. How gracious is my God!
So for my 30th birthday I asked the Lord for wisdom. Wisdom far greater than any mother needs, I know it won't compare to Solomon's but then I don't have a kingdom to run. I just desire the kind of wisdom I could not posess in my youth. The kind that raises children according to God's standards. The kind that enables me to be a meek and quiet example of God's love to my husband. These are my greatest desires. A very wise man, whom I am honored to call Dad, pointed out to me that the wisdom that I asked for IS the very same kind of wisdom Solomon had, yet without love it does not yield a balanced result. Although I don't deserve ANY of it, the God who gave up His only son to have a reletionship with me, promises if I ask His will in His son's name, he will do it. (John 14:14) I have so much to look forward to!
