For years,I have prayed Isaiah 61 over my family, asking the Lord to give beauty forashes, asking Him to indeed grow these daughters of mine into oaks ofrighteousness, a planting for the display of His splendor. I have cried tearsstraight into the words “freedom for captives” as I begged this promise for acertain few of my little ladies specifically. I have rested in the promise ofthe oil of joy instead of mourning and I have rejoiced with the prophet Isaiahas each one has come to her own understanding that He has clothed her withgarments of salvation and a robe of righteousness. My eyes stuck right there onIsaiah 61 praying in hope those words of verse 11, that the Lord would causerighteousness and praise to spring up before all nations.

            Only onSaturday morning, the morning after I married the very most Christ-like man Ihave ever met, did my eyes wander down past verse 11, down the page to Isaiah,Chapter 62. As if, now that I was beginning this new chapter of life, maybe Godwould give me a new chapter to pray over my family. My breath caught in mythroat as I read these words that I somehow had never read before.

            “Thenations will see your vindication, and all kings your glory. You will be calledby a new name that the mouth of theLord will bestow. You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand, a royaldiadem in the hand of your God. No longer will they call you Deserted, or yourname Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah (my delight is in her) and yourland will be Beulah (married). For the Lord will take delight in you and yourland will be married. As a young man marries a young woman, so will yourBuilder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your Godrejoice over you.”

            Right thereon the thin, gilded page, was his heart for me, for Benji, for each of mygirls, for our family – that we would know His delight in us, the way Herejoices over us.

            The lasttwo years have been a different season. A season of quiet, of dark and sadness,of joys that felt too personal to share with anyone other than my HeavenlyFather. I have tried to write many times, but I have been learning the beautyof the secret place, just Him and me. The Lord who knows my heart has beenwhispering to me of a new season for a long time, and my flesh has worried thatthis new season might take me out of my secret hiding place with Him, thatsomehow a physical, tangible relationship with another might take away from myrelationship with my Builder, My Lover, My Life-Giver.

            Little didI know that this new relationship would only enhance the other.

            I becameMrs. Majors on January 2nd of this year. Benji is a discipler of menand a faithful maker of breakfast. Long before we shared a home we shared ahometown with only a few hilltops to keep our adolescent lives from everintersecting.  As the Lord would have it,we would only meet on the other side of an ocean after He had captured ourhearts with a love for the Ugandan people and a desire for The Word to go forthin this place. At first I was hesitant, but while Benji was patient, God wasfaithfully working on my heart. I watched him teach Bible studies and disciplemen and fix my kids’ bikes. We laughed over coffee and all the crazy thingsthat are life here. He taught me more and more about the love of Jesus, in hiswords, and in his example. He captured my heart. And on the night he washed myfeet and asked me to be his forever, the yes jumped off my lips as if it hadalways been waiting there just for him.

I imagined marriage would be good.Wonderful even. But I did not even begin to understand that it would be thisholy. I didn’t know that I would melt under this man’s gaze that is so full ofthe love of the Father for me. I didn’t imagine the way his delight in me wouldbe my daily reminder of the way my Father delights in me. My husband’s love isjust another way God has chosen to pour our His extravagant love on me, anotherconstant reminder that He rejoices over me, and over each one of our daughters.

            I watchthem come alive under the loving gaze of their new father, I hear the delightand the certainty in their voices as they call “Dad.” And without me evenhaving to ask, God who knows my heart has given me my new prayer over them:that in knowing the delight of their earthly father, they would begin to graspthe delight of their Heavenly Father all the more. That they would be a crownof splendor in His hand, that they would embrace this new name: “my delight isin her.”

God gives good gifts. His delight is in me, in us, in them.May our delight be evermore in Him.