This blog entry was written yesterday. A fair bit of preparation has gone into today’s proceedings, there’s the highlighting of the previous blog I wrote on this very subject. Earlier on today I posted the first musical tribute about today based on my heart’s desire and then around lunchtime I also put together another musical tribute to the love of my life.
Right about now if all is going to plan, my beautiful daughters will be asleep, especially Zoë. The location won’t be crucial, but Mrs Dryden and myself will be engaging in some soft reminiscences of how we’ve got to where we’ve got to. No distractions from technology, just Mrs Dryden and me. Talking. Laughing. Talking some more. Saying nothing. Closing our eyes. Reflecting.
On Sunday 15th June 2003 we made public our declaration of the lifelong commitment to each other we had made in the year before. That public declaration completed the process of commitment and I was relieved about the end of that process. Little did I know it would be the beginning of the most tumultuous process of my life and undoubtedly the most satisfying.
Over the last week or so I have felt a surge of love for Mrs A. Dryden that I have never felt before, something rooted in that initial knowing of deeper love for Authrine than for any other human being before or since. Something far greater than any love I’d experienced previously with the exception of one love. That love supreme.
Such was the surge that what manifested was an even greater concerted effort to be one with my wife on the key issues that face us as a couple, as individuals and as a family. We have been through a very trying two years by God’s grace because He has somehow knitted us closer together than ever before. Not in an exclusive way, but in strengthening the foundations of our relationship, ensuring that our hearts, minds and lives continue to depend on Him.
He has lead us through that stormy time in our lives and where the strains and the buckling could have loosened other bonds, because He was more than aware of these tribulations they were used to help us hold more desperately to Him and as a result have a greater appreciation for each other.
It is more true than its ever been that the success of any marriage is ensure there are three and only three crucial stakeholders in it – the husband, the wife and the Creator. His plan of marriage helps us navigate the whole thing. His heart for relationship helps us build on what He has started. His example of sacrificial love helps remind us that individual personal selfish gain is counter-productive. When tempers rise, His calming balm reconciles. In times of separation, His spirit keeps us faithful. In times of misunderstanding, His presence brings meekness, patience and endurance to get there.
In so many ways it’s as if we’re only starting to realise the power of a good marriage founded on living to love and serve each other. It’s been a privilege to see glimpses of that in other marriages, and the longevity of my own parents’ marriage testifies to the power of God in the middle of things to help it to last. 7 years isn’t much in comparison to the 35 years they’ll be celebrating in September. I’m aware that it’s also not much in comparison to other long marriages.
I’m glad though that I don’t live by comparison. I live from day to day on the principle of gratitude for what God sustains in my life and I was never guaranteed seven years of married life. I was not guaranteed a seventh year that would prove to be more fulfilling, joyful, challenging and productive than any of the other six. That was not guaranteed to me at all.
I remember only too well the traps set in place from within and without to stymie the health and growth of this relationship from its inception to now. I am only too aware that there are battles we are about to face that might make all we’ve overcome before look like a stroll in the park.
For all that’s happened and may happen, though, I am thankful for the present. I don’t know about tomorrow and Jesus assures me it has enough to concern itself with. I can do nothing about the past except view it with the right perspective as victories won. What I have is this moment. What I have is right now.
Right now I have the most beautiful woman in the world, and sometimes in a very real way the only woman in my world. Right now I have the Holy Spirit of God illuminating in me the vision of my wife that God placed in me from the beginning.
Right now I see that in the woman I am one with. Right now I rejoice at the goodness of God in the physical and spiritual being of Authrine Elizabeth Dryden and I rejoice in the creation of marriage and it’s ability to give insight into the divine plan of the ages of Jesus and His Bride.
Right now I offer heartfelt thanks for good and bad things that have been the paving stones of the journey of our married life to this point. Right now I lift my heart and sing of the wonders of my God who has founded, sustained and enlightened this marriage of ours.
Right now I thank God for Rowland and Gail, Rudolph and Purline, Thomas and Ruth, David and Nicola, Reuben and Ruth, Hughie and Angela, Ritson and Diana …
Yet most of all … right now … looking deep into her eyes, with tears welling up in my own … with no one else in the world other than a proud beaming smiling Heavenly Father …
Right now …
I thank God
for
Authrine
Elizabeth
Dryden
The love of my life – my God-given wife.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
dmcd
Life With CD 
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