All things work for our good

After a proposal in June 2019, we had spent much of the past 8 months or so planning for our wedding scheduled for 28th March 2020. As you’d expect we were very excited for what was to come however as time went on, there was a creeping sense of uneasiness as we followed the spread of Coronavirus across the world. 10 days before the wedding and the outlook was looking bleak.

There were talks of an imminent lockdown and most importantly, we felt it was not wise to jeopardise the health and wellbeing of our guests for our big day. It was clear we had a big decision to make.

Naturally, we took this crisis before God as a couple in prayer. In that, God strengthened our faith, reminding us of the way in which we initially placed the timescales of our wedding plans before Him as well as the prophetic words that had previously been spoken over our wedding plans. We knew therefore that God was still in control and if God was for us, who could ever be against us? We therefore wanted to remain obedient to God and decided come what may, we would be getting married.

In 24 hrs, we stripped every element of our wedding back so that ultimately it would only be His glory alone on display. What followed was God doing what He does best: clearing the way for His purposes.

We spoke to the church to book the service for the next day (a week earlier than we’d planned). We tailored the guest list to only have our immediate family present. Our wedding suppliers were super supportive of moving their services to a different date where our photographer even offered to come down and shoot the day for free (@KimBurrowsPhotography)! We even ordered what we would wear with ASOS same day delivery! What is usually the most stressful thing to plan suddenly became a breeze.

On the big day itself, the feeling we had driving to the church could only be described as the peace of God. There were no nerves, no faff - just the knowledge that we were doing what God had asked us to. The result was a PERFECT day. The sun was shining, smiles were glistening and a number of joyful tears were shed. We sit here now unable to imagine a better day and we therefore have to give God thanks, because despite the perceived chaos going on around us, He always knows what He is doing. Nothing explains this more than the fact we had Romans 8:28 inscribed on the inside of our rings. Who knew it would carry such meaning?!

In all, we learned that when God is placed at the centre, no amount of glitz and glamour will ever outdo Him. We’re going to have a big celebration come next year to put in motion the original plan but we know nothing will compare to what we already experienced. The love we have for each other is a gift from God with infinite value and when all the wedding trimmings were stripped back, the true value of that gift was laid bare.

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”- Romans 8:28.