Rehearsal Dinner speech 2

Rehearsal Dinner – Marriage #2

When you graduate from high school and go off to college, you wake up and realize your parents aren’t around. You’re free – no one telling you:

To get out of bed
To go to bed
To turn off the television
Get off the computer
Turn off your cell phone
To avoid strangers
To go to bed and I swear I am not kidding this time
To help with the dishes
To comb your hair, cut it, or get it out of your eyes
To make your bed
To stand up straight
To speak up
To clean up the “pig sty” in your room
To come here right now before I count to three
To look at your mother when she talks to you
To not look at your mother that way
To eat your dinner
To take out the trash
To settle down
To grow up
To stop growing up so fast
To get in the bathtub
To get out of the bathtub
To Walk
To hurry up
To wash your hands
To eat with your mouth closed
To eat your green vegetables

Why are you giving all this up and getting married?

Tomorrow you will wake up and have a mate. Neither of you is prepared for what comes with your new mate. Someone new telling you what to do. Lust – I mean love has blinded you. Infatuation trumps judgment. You have hidden in your closet during your courtship any number of quirky traits that will sneak out at very timely moments. Now there are two votes. The problem with votes is that it usually ends in a tie, which means gamesmanship. Marriage today is the butt of many jokes.

You may have heard some of these:

The happiest marriage I can imagine would be the union of a deaf man to a blind women or
Love is an ocean of emotions entirely surrounded by expenses.
Marrying a man is like buying something you’ve been admiring for a long time in a shop window. You may love it when you get it home, but it doesn’t always go with everything in the house.
The husband who wants a happy marriage should learn to keep his mouth shut and his checkbook open.
Men have a better time than women: for one thing, they marry later: for another thing they die earlier.
Men, to keep your marriage brimming with love in the wedding cup, whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up.
Marriage is like a hot bath, Once you get used to it, it’s not so hot.
Marriage is the only sport which the caged animal has to buy a license.
Marriage is the only war in which you sleep with the enemy.
Marriage is the process of finding out what kind of person your spouse would have really preferred.
Marriage is when a man and women become one; the trouble is deciding which one.
A husband expects his wife to be perfect … and understand why he is not.
A husband is living proof that a wife can take a joke.

The world has gotten sarcastic about marriage so the world has decided to provide lots of advice: Bride, MadamsElle, and Cosmopolitan.

They are designed for the women to look at the pictures and the men to read the articles on the S word. The problem is that women do not read the articles.

Or you can go to the Bookstore. Straight Talk, What Men Need To Know/What Women Should Understand, Building Your Mates Self Esteem, The Man in the Mirror, Solving the 24 Problems Men Face, Love Must Be Tough, Reforming Marriage. Many of these are worthwhile, but it would be simpler and more useful to go straight to God’s words on the subject.

Tomorrow night, you will get married in God’s house. You will walk down the aisle and in a ceremony sanctified by God, you will say your vows to one another. What a moment it will be.

We challenge you, since you’re going to his house to review his book on the subject.

Read it, talk about it. Build your marriage on it and the words you recite tomorrow.

Here is some of God’s wisdom on marriage:

Proverbs 19:13 NIV

13 A foolish son is his father’s ruin,
and a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping.

Proverbs 18:22

22 He who finds a wife finds what is good
and receives favor from the LORD.

Proverbs 12:4

4 A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown,
but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones.

Ephesians 5:22-31

22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing^[a] her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30for we are members of his body. 31″For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”^[b]

Proverbs 31:10-12

10 ^[a] A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.

11 Her husband has full confidence in her
and lacks nothing of value.

12 She brings him good, not harm,
all the days of her life.

Proverbs 31:26

26 She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.

Go to scripture to learn how to meet your mates’ needs. It covers: acceptance, affection, appreciation, approval, attention, comfort, encouragement, respect, security and support. Learn your mates’ most important needs – meet them and you will have a long successful marriage.

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