Join Me in Celebrating My Anniversary!

Thank you for pulling up a chair at The Training Table. So glad you could join us for the sort of feast of the heart that is necessary for running the good race (Hebrews 12:1; 1 Corinthians 9:24).

Today is the 26th Anniversary of my wife Peggy and my marriage. Yeeehah!!! It’s cause for great celebration and great thankfulness for all the many blessings we have received from God—in both the highest highs, and the lowest lows! Here’s to many more…

Please allow me to offer the quotes below to celebrate this wonderful occasion. I do so with the deepest gratitude to God for blessing me with my wife, Peggy.

I do so with the deepest commitment to aim to be better and better in my devotion to God, my vows, and my wonderful wife in marriage. Additionally, to whatever positive consequences and fruits that might accrue from our marriage and growing devotion to my wife for the rest of our family and whomever Peggy and I might influence.

I didn’t show up in marriage with any (E.g., none, zippo, nada, zilch, goose egg…) notion of, or capability to love. It is only by God’s grace, Peggy’s patience, and the model, inspiration, and support of many, many folks… that I now have more than none… and on my best day offer some!

So, in keeping with the celebration of God’s love, my love for my wife Peggy, and the love I pray each day that will flow to others from the previous two, please enjoy a few examples of the greatest love, and one example of seeking to vanquish the greatest unlove that is so easily and readily present when I, when we, choose to harden and/or hide our heart to and from love.

Purely by God the Father’s effectual grace, God the Son’s sacrificial model, and God the Spirit’s supernatural heart-changing power… do I aim to grow in the love revealed in the first three quotes, and vanquish the darkness I know so well in the last quote.

A Feast of the Heart: Inspiration for Growing in LOVE and Decreasing in UNLOVE

“No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. (1 John 4:12).

“Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 6:14).

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:22).

“Love anything and your heart will be wrung out and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, and irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” (CS Lewis, The Four Loves)

Thank you for all your love and support on this special day… and every day thereafter!!

All my love to you, Peggy!

We’re verily and mightily blessed,
JohnDoz