Forget Me Not

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.
~Charles Spurgeon (19th century pastor and theologian)

It’s said that ages, long ago,
when God had formed the earth and heaven,
He called the flowers one by one
until to all sweet names He’d given:
to one, pure Lily, other Rose
another Violet, or Daisy fair,
as each bright flower before Him passed,
to wear anew its Father’s care.

One day a tiny flower with pale blue eye,
stood at the Father’s feet and gazing in His face,
it said, in low and trembling tone
and with a modest grace,
“Dear God, the name You gave to me,
alas I have forgot!”
Then kindly looked the Father down
and said: “Forget-me-not.”
~Ethel Ridley (adapted by Emily Bruce Roelofson)

The tiny blue forget-me-not blossom reminds us who we are:
we are faithful,
we are loving,
we will remember,
we will keep the promises we make.

God does not make His promises in order to please us. He faithfully keeps His promises because He knows we need to understand what happens in our lives is according to His plan.

He forgets-us-not because we are the troubled dust upon which He has blown sweet and fragrant breath.

God is ever-faithful,
God loves us forever,
God never withers.

His promises are carved upon our hearts.

for those of you familiar with the Forget-me-not’s role in the Outlander book series…

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Thirty Five Years Ago Today

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Before God and this gathering, I vow from my heart and spirit that I will be your wife/husband for as long as we both shall live.

I will love you with faithfulness, knowing its importance in sustaining us through good times and bad.

I will love you with respect, serving your greatest good and supporting your continued growth.

I will love you with compassion, knowing the strength and power of forgiveness.

I will love you with hope, remembering our shared belief in the grace of God and His guidance of our marriage.

“And at home, by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be–and whenever I look up, there will be you.”

(our wedding vows for our September 19, 1981 wedding at First Seattle Christian Reformed Church — the last line adapted from Thomas Hardy’s  “Far From the Madding Crowd”)

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I give you what is unbounded, passing from dark to dark,
containing darkness: a night of rain, an early morning.
I give you the life I have let live for the love of you:
a clump of orange-blooming weeds beside the road,
the young orchard waiting in the snow, our own life
that we have planted in the ground, as I
have planted mine in you.

~Wendell Berry from The Country of Marriage

danfield

natetomomi122414

Thirty five years ago today we became one story, a story still being told.
What joy it is to know you and be known by you!
May our story have many more chapters celebrating the poetry of life together, with a minimum of plot twists and cliffhangers.

We’ll trust the Author who touches us with Words as tenderly as we touch each other.
It is bliss to love and be loved from the first page to the last.

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