To Lead and Love, To Serve and Submit

Our wedding on July 27 was a feast for someone who loves words — especially encouraging ones. From our pastor’s exhortation to all the speeches from friends and family, Mike and I were moved and our hearts were filled with such gratitude.

I rewatched the wedding highlights put together by our videographers and thought I should transcribe some of those beautiful messages, starting with the words spoken by Pastor Joseph Disarno. I hope you’ll be blessed by it as much as Mike and I have been. 

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Mike, the Bible exhorts you to love your wife as Christ loves the church. And I want you to know that is not an easy thing to be demanded of you. Because Christ loved the church enough to give His life and die for us. 

As a husband and leader of a family to come — at least the two of you are gonna make a new family — you are called to be a leader and a lover and you must be both of those things. To just be a leader is not enough because some leaders are everything but kind and gentle and loving. It’s not enough just to be a lover because some lovers will never lead you in a correct way. So God is calling you to be both: a leader and a lover of a new family. 

As a lover, it’s more than just the romance, especially of your first years. It’s a love that gives. It’s a love that prefers your partner above yourself. And many men do not learn that. They think that the wife is just there to serve them. They don’t understand that you’re to serve one another; that it’s a mutual service. But I wanna tell you there is such a positivity about serving one another because as you give in service, you sow a seed and it comes back to you more and blessed. 

So, Mike, I know that you are going to be a good husband. And I know that you are a kind and a gentle man that will lead Jucy in the way that you believe God is calling you to go. You’re both Christians for many, many years and your life is not just about choices, it’s about hearing from the Lord and then choosing His choice. So I don’t know what your future holds; I know that you have some feelings to do missions work and I pray that that would really come to pass and it will come to pass sooner rather than later. You are not just going to need to lead your wife, and if the Lord blesses you with children, I believe you are also gonna lead in the church as you have been. 

Jucy, you are called to your husband to honor and obey him and to submit to him; and for me you get the easier part. Because when you submit to somebody, you say ‘okay, I’m gonna obey but it’s on you’. Basically that’s what you’re saying. You know, if you disagree as a good woman and a woman of God you should talk to your husband — Mike, your best counselor will always be your wife; but you know as a leader you listen, but you don’t always… you don’t have to act on what they tell you, you have to decide.

So, Jucy, for me it’s easier to say ‘I will submit to you, I’ve told you what I feel, and now I will lay down my prerogatives and follow you’. And who knows what that will end up being, where you will follow him. But I know you have lived a life as an expat for so many years, that you’re used to living away from loved ones and families and suffering loneliness — like, I understand you because Doreen and I have been doing it for a very long time.