Marriage is having someone to curl up against when the world seems cold and life uncertain.  It is having someone who is as concerned as you are when the children are sick.  It is having a hand that keeps checking your forehead for fever when you’re not well. To be married is to have someone’s shoulder to cry on as they lower your parent’s body into the ground. It is wrapping wrinkled knees in warm blankets and giggling without teeth!

To the person you marry, you are saying, “When my time comes to leave this world, and the chilly wind of eternity blows away my birthdays, and my future stands cold and dark in the night, it’s your face I want to kiss good-bye. It is your hand I want to squeeze as I slip from time into eternity.  As the curtain closes on all I have attempted to do and be, I want to look into your eyes and see that I mattered. Not what I looked like. Not what I did or how much money I made. Not how talented I was. I want to look into the teary eyes of someone who loves me and see – I mattered! 

Excerpt is taken from the Woman, Thou Art Loosed Bible by Bishop Jakes - Table for Two, Matthew 19:5, 6; Page 1081.