A Honeymoon Marriage, Is It Worth the Wait?

This post is partially dedicated to the singles.

Eylssa and I are celebrating with our best man and matron of honor who have been our best friends for years. Jessie is 20+ years is Eylssa’s bestie and Kevin has 19 years of prayer history with the groom. Jessie and Kevin were significant supports in us finding our “God's Plan A” spouse for our happy honeymoon marriage. (We will celebrate the matron of honor in a later post.) 

Groom and Best Man look on the Bride Elyssa

Kevin was a very strong support for me 19 years ago when he began helping me pray for my future spouse. In 1994 I sang in the Brooklyn Tabernacle Youth Chorale, with LaToya, who later would become Kevin’s bride. I had known her before they met, and I too helped him in prayer before they married.

Kevin was part of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Prayer Band. The Monday night preceding the Tuesday 9/11 tragedy he had prayed his regular, all-night 8-hour prayer shift at the church and then stopped by my house. Kevin saw my life spared that morning. I was an employee at the World Trade Center Tower One of the 18th floor. I did not go to work that day because of a set of palpable promptings from God. (Still today I live with a deep sense of gratitude for each time I send my wife off away from home; I gaze to see her until she drives out of my site. Secondly, I am extremely aware of the premium of being sensitive to God’s voice on a daily and frequent basis as the safest way to truly thrive and avert all manner of danger). Kevin and I went through the emotions of horror, shock, and humble gratitude for my life being spared. (I will be sharing more about my 9/11 story in the future.)

Kevin and I similarly also share the experience of waiting to kiss our brides until we were at the wedding ceremony altar. He and LaToya have been married for twelve years and have two beautiful children.

A celebration like this is important to the singles because your greatest prayer support ally, like Kevin, can be the one who walks your mother down the aisle at your wedding day.

Best Man Kevin walks Mother of Groom down the aisle

And stands beside you in that moment of celebration, victory, joy, and gratitude. Your prayer support allies time with you are not in vain. Kevin is amazing at many things, but if I could pick one thing that Kevin helped me the most with over the years, it would be the prayer support that frequently happened in our times of conversations.

After the 9/11 tragedy, and my being so close to it and yet so graciously spared, I dusted off my seminary application. I packed my bags, headed to Chicagoland and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School for a Masters Degree (combining two focuses, a Masters of Divinity and a Christian Counseling Psychology). Kevin remained a dear friend to me, and it was beautiful to have him at our wedding that he had prayed for so long. 

Kevin got to see what he and I prayed together come to fruition. Elyssa J. Joseph, a woman of grace, a virgin bride who completes me, (per the story in Genesis). We are fitted together for doing God's unique work (i.e., making purity cool again and demystifying the authentic blueprint to having confidence in marriage). 

The first public kiss of Elyssa and Wladimir at the wedding altar preceded by a 15-second private kiss.

How might this post apply to you?
If you are single, and you sense a calling to not be single:
You are likely forgoing a rare fuel of support if you don't have a friend who you can count on being a prayer support, who prays alongside you for a spouse "worth the wait.”
If you have such a friend, remember to thank God often...