A Wedding Prayer for Matt and Gina

In the beginning there was one sound, one rhythm, one heartbeat.
Young, strong, confident and unrelenting!
Filled with the dreams of tomorrow and free from the oppression of fear...
Carefree, unashamed and confident in the knowledge of God's magnificent and perfect love.
Everyone here knows this sound for it is the sound of youth...
It is the sound of dreams to be fulfilled
It is the sound of goals to be accomplished...
It is the sound of life to be lived to the fullest.
It fills us with the hope of timeless wonders, great expectations and limitless joy
It knows no boundaries, obeys no laws and is never tiring.

Matt and Gina, It is YOUR perfect face, as it can only be seen through Gods eyes.

But as time passes, trials and tribulation come...
Without warning, without prior notice, without a whisper of things to come.
Suddenly LIFE allows us to hear our heartbeat again
But instead of the dreams to be fulfilled, we hear the busyness of our day...
Instead of the sounds of goals to accomplish it drowns out the sound of our youth
Instead of the sounds of a life to be lived to the fullest it mutes the wonder of God's perfect love for us...

BUT JUST THEN...
Just then we hear the sound of another heartbeat.
We find another soul that's so similar in complexity and experience we mistake it for our own.
We stop and listen. We discover it's not our own heartbeat but that of a kindred spirit.
Someone so similar and yet so different.
Someone who has shared the same lifetime and experience only from a different body, a different place.
Again we hear our own heartbeat. The dreams, goals, youth and life to be lived to the fullest are restored.
Together we journey down the same road with the realization of a perfect love...
Together we realize the same dream, accomplish the same goal and live life to the fullest.
Together, as in the beginning, there is STILL one heartbeat! What was once two separate halves are now whole and perfect in the eyes of God.

My niece Gina and her husband Matt are the shining, beautiful face of perfection in the eyes of God and I pray that he will bless them now through all of their earthly days and into eternity.