A blessed sould tempered by the Grace of God

Last Friday, I attended a wedding of a couple I know from church. They were celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary and they renewed their vows with all of us as witnesses.

I have not been writing much about the area of romance, but it doesn't really mean that I am not thinking about it. I am more confused now than I was a couple of months ago. I guess the more we learn things the more we are able to understand that things like these are not as easy as we think it is.

Coming from a family who did not have an example of a beautiful romantic relationship, my idea of romance has been shaped mostly by imagination and observation. I can not remember any family member who had an ideal romance. Except for those who have seperated and went on to have different spouses (legal or otherwise), those that remain either had histories of unfaithfulness, unwanted pregnancies, elopement, family members widely opposing the relationship and other incidents that do not fall under the category of ideal. But of course, life goes on and I continue to hope that when my turn comes, I will have what I have been praying for. Not that I want it to be ideal, I simply want it to be normal.

And so at my stage now, things can be confusing trying to juggle all the other areas in my life and at the same time always careful that what I do now will not have repercussions on my future of everything in my life. I could say that there are times that I am just afraid. I am afraid because I know that even those that had failed relationships, they too were dreaming of normal ones back when they were young.

So going back to the wedding, I listened to the pastors message, sharing how a marriage is not between two people but between three the other one is, of course, God. I marvel at the video presentation that chronicled the different stages in the marriage of the couple. I know that their 15 years wasn't all heaven, but I also know that in the 15 years that they spent together, the two of them do not regret a thing at marrying one another. Their faces were that of pure joy that can only come from a blessed soul tempered by the grace of God.

How does one really know?

I know that I will not be able to answer the question at this point. I guess no one really knows. As I always say, for each of us we will all experience these things in a different way. Each event in our life will be revealed to us in a manner that will tailor fit the kind of person that we are. In each of these events we will decide based on the wisdom that we have acquired and hope that the result of our decisions will be the one that will bring us closer to our dreams. There will be encounters with people from all walks of life, all telling us different ideas about the same things. We will choose what to believe and act on those beliefs, but still in the end, we will never really know, we can just hope and pray.

I am confused because at a time when things in my life seems to have that direction I have been looking for in the past, I am becoming worried of the other aspect that does not have one... the romance thing that is. I know I am being impatient about this so spare me the criticism. I hate the fact that I am admitting how shallow I can be, but then this is me and I can not help it. Maybe later on I will forget this nonsense, be busy again and time will fly so fast. I do not know, I am just hoping and praying hard that in the end what will happen to me will be, just like the couple in the wedding, a blessed sould tempered by the grace of God