Wedding

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Yesterday evening I attended the sweet wedding of two beautiful and awesome people, who I've come to know and care for very much. 

 After the ceremony, we all gathered for the reception while we waited for the wedding party to finish with their post-ceremony photos. 

 Joy permeated the room.  Laughter was on everyone's lips.  Food tasted better.  The drinks were ambrosia.  The lights twinkled like stars.  All of it was imbued with meaning. 

 No matter what was happening outside of that room, for the moment all we felt was joy and hope at the prospect of new beginnings.  For a few precious hours, we all stepped into eternity and simply reveled in it. 

 I think most of us long to feel that eternal joy in every moment.  We long to know the kind of peace that comes from a hope that is secured through our trust in God's love and mercy. 

 But we relegate most of our moments to "ordinary" status and resign ourselves to days spent feeling as though we're falling short of the people we could be because we don't have enough faith...  or we're not good enough... not Christian enough... 

 And as a result, far too many people define their Christian faith in negative terms.  They speak about what they are against... what they are not... what they despise about the world around us... a world full of eternity, beauty and wonder--a world created and loved by God.

 Thomas Merton once wrote:   
Do you think that [the saints] love of God was compatible with a hatred for things that reflected Him and spoke of Him on every side? 
But when we let our love for God and the world fill us with holy passion, we discover that every moment is holy and full of hope and everything around us can be signs and symbols of God's resurrection love. 

 Carolyn Weber writes:
When we "burn for God" we realize that life, which can otherwise seem a string of random, transient and meaningless moments, is actually momentous in God's eternal economy.   
Today, let yourself feel the joy that is inherent in all of God's great world.  May you see the glory and beauty and eternity in every moment.  May you burn in your desire for God and discover the momentous in everything.  

 And may the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you now and always. Amen.   

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