Posts tagged quotes
MIA
02 years ago
by Erin
Me at the wedding
Well, I was in a wedding last weekend as the matron of honor. I was so nervous about it, but everything went off beautifully and the couple was very happy in the end. Here is the speech I nearly had an aneurysm writing. I also started crying mid way through it!
Good Evening everyone, my name is Erin and I am proud to be the matron of honor. Bride and Groom*, congratulations on your marriage. I know you two will be really happy together.
Groom and I have known each other since high school, and I first met Bride when she started dating him in college. I liked her right away because I saw how happy my friend was when he was with her, and then I could see why he was so happy. Groom, I don’t have to tell you what a sweet, caring, thoughtful person Bride is and I can’t begin to thank you enough for bringing someone like her into my life. Bride is the kind of person whose “effect […] on those around her [is] incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life” like Bride (Middlemarch).
And actually, our meeting was pre-destined. Bride and I lived a block away from each other when we were in elementary school and we went to the same middle school, but never knew each other. In fact, when we were in middle school we both took a quiz sponsored by our student council that was supposed to tell us who our friend matches were. For some reason I kept mine and came across it a couple years ago, and guess who my number one friend match was? Some girl named Bride. So, see? I did learn something in middle school.
At this point it’s usually customary to offer up some quote or a tidbit of advice about love and married life. Unfortunately, having been married for two years now I know that there’s nothing new I can tell you that you haven’t heard already. Being married is hard work. And there will probably be days when you are so annoyed by your spouse, you may wonder what in the hell you were thinking getting yourself into this whole marriage gig to begin with. Ephesians says to “Patiently put up with each other and love each other.” (Eph 4:2) Because then you’ll remember the time he tried to make you soup when you were sick, or how you told jokes in the dark before sleeping and laughed until your sides hurt, and it’s all worth it.
“Rejoice in the wife of your youth […] may you always be captivated by her love.” Prov 5:18-19
As your relationship began among books, it is fitting that it continues in “Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, [and] is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve,” (Middlemarch).
Here is to the beginning of the next chapter of your narrative. Cheers, to Bride and Groom.
*Named changed to protect the innocent!
Next week I am flying to Knoxville, TN to attend another wedding. Fortunately, this time I am not in it, just a guest!
Favorite Quotes
02 years ago
by Erin
I am going to be in a wedding next weekend and I am trying to write my matron of honor speech. It’s not really going well 
So in the meantime, here are some of my favorite quotes:
“Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help.” — Psalm 22:11
“We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, ‘Oh, nothing!’ Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts — not to hurt others.” — George Eliot, Middlemarch
“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” — George Eliot, Middlemarch
“Many Theresas have been born who found for themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of far-resonant action […] they tried to shape their thought and deed in noble agreement; but after all, to common eyes their struggles seemed mere inconsistency and formlessness; for these later-born Theresas were helped by no coherent social faith and order which could perform the function of knowledge for the ardently willing soul.” — George Eliot, Middlemarch
“It is not violence that best overcomes hate—nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury.” — Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
“‘Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs.’” — Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
“Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you — haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe — I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always — take any form — drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!” — Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
How to deal with Rejection
17 years ago
by Erin
Psalm 42:11
“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”
Isaiah 49:1-4
“Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, you peoples far away! The LORD called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me. He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away. And he said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’ But I said, ‘I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my cause is with the LORD, and my reward is with God.’”
And of course, the entire book of Job.
Psalm 37:3-5
“Trust in the LORD, and do good; so you will live in the land, and enjoy security. Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.”
Tobit is helpful.
Luke 6:22-23
“‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on the account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.’”
