“Oh, Lord, you have been good,
You have been faithful to all generations.”

It was our wedding song, twenty years ago this past summer. 

At twenty-seven, I felt much more mature than my friends who had gotten married right out of college. I had spent a few years working through the possibility of staying single for the rest of my life. And I had already made it through two years of an overseas assignment.

“For by your hand, we have been fed,
And by your Spirit, we have been led…”

Ours was a cross-cultural relationship, but I had no doubt that God had met each of us years ago on different continents. He had led us to the front of my childhood church that July afternoon; he would be faithful in our new marriage and as we began the next generation.

I had no idea on our wedding day, however, how true the words of our wedding song actually were, or how much deeper the meaning would grow with each passing year. 

Difficult colleagues; ministry ups and downs. Living overseas; “home assignments” in a place that isn’t really home anymore. Infertility and miscarriage; foster care in a foreign country. Chasing down reams of documents and cutting through government red tape in both of our home countries. Two adoptions. The death of parents, a sister, a nephew. Always saying goodbye to someone so we can say hello somewhere else…

“Your steadfast love, and tender mercies, have been our salvation.”

Somehow, without even coming close to understanding the truth of the words, we had chosen the perfect wedding song. Perfect for the life we had already lived, and perfect for the twenty years and counting since that day. 

“Oh, Lord, Almighty God
Father unchanging, upright and holy.” 

Another wedding celebration is coming, and we’ve been invited. We can’t really “save the date,” because the only one who knows the day and the hour is our unchanging Father. But he asks us to be ready, and I’m practicing my song… the one where we’ll sing praise to him for his faithfulness through all generations. The wedding song.