Scott and Cindy Pickett

I had the honor this weekend to officiate the wedding of an old friend. Scott Pickett asked Debi and I to spend the weekend at the Ashby Inn a B&B in Paris VA and today along with 50 close friends and family Scott and Cindy pledge their love to each other in one of the most beautiful settings for a wedding I have ever been around. As with most great weddings, I (the minister) had a small speaking part and the spotlight was on Scott and Cindy who wrote their own vows and most of the rest of the ceremony as well. The following was my heartfelt remarks to the happy couple just before the vows.

6000 years Moses wrote these words and they are still applicable to couples pledging the sacred covenant of marriage today. This is Genesis 2:23-24 ²³ The man (Adam said of Eve),  “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” ²⁴ That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

The last phrase is key "they become one flesh." This is a picture of something much greater than just a physical oneness. The oneness that happens between bodies should happen on every level of human marriage experience. Your souls become one, your spirits become one. Your thinking is joined, your memories are joined.

It is God's work to make two into one in this remarkable way. Some say that you can be in an emotional relationship and not have it affect you spiritually, or that in some other way the experiences of body and soul and spirit can be separated from each other. The Scriptures know nothing of that kind of married relationship. Scott & Cindy you are in all parts as God made you, and in marriage the total sum of you is married to the total sum of the other. Scott & Cindy today your heart, your spirit, your future, and everything else about you belongs to other and in fact are one, joined together by God.

Scott & Cindy, Thank you for allowing us to be a small part of your wonderful weekend. May God Bless your new life together! We love you!

Toney & Deb