However, as the details of the wedding day have come together, its importance in my mind has faded and the overarching significance of our marriage has become all the more real. Of course our wedding day will be wonderful, but it’s our marriage, for the rest of our lives, that we know God is calling us to build toward and live.

When I was in high school I attended a few talks regarding vocations. One priest said that most of us in the room would be called to marriage. But just because it’s the vocation of the majority does not make it any less valuable in the eyes of God than the priesthood or religious life. In fact, he said, good marriages are the foundation of the church. He said this is because marriage is meant to be life-giving and sacrificial in that God calls men and women together in this sacrament to bring life into the church, and to lay down their lives for each other and for their children in raising them ultimately as children of God.

As I think about the huge task that lies ahead in my calling to marriage I can’t help but wonder if we’re going to be able to live up to it. Then I think this is where the grace of the sacrament must come in. I know that God won’t just bring us together and leave us to do it on our own. As Joseph and I pray together for our future, I can’t help but feel we are two people embarking on a great journey.

Maybe I feel a little bit like Moses did when God called him to lead his people out of the desert to the Promised Land. I know there are difficult times ahead on the journey, but the fruit of the journey is learning to trust in God. In this day and age, a lasting marriage seems to be getting rarer, but our faith tells us to trust God and He will guide us in good times and in bad. 

I get a surge of hope in my heart when I look at the lasting marriages around me; my parents have been married almost 30 years. One day when my mom had the flu, and my dad stayed home and took care of her, I remember thinking, “This is what they meant by ‘in sickness and in health,’ now that’s love right there.”

When I think about some of the young couples I know with babies, who get up for one another in the middle of the night to see to the crying, I think, “Now that’s the love I wish to have.”

When I look at my grandparents, married for more than 50 years, their age starting to show, but their love for each other never wavering I see that it can be done. In these marriages I see the prayerful, faithful people that I wish for Joseph and I to grow into being.

(Williams, 22, is in communications at Mount Royal College in  Calgary.)