Wedding bells ring; congratulations, gifts, and honeymoon ensue; newlywed bliss begins. You are so excited about the new life you and your husband are beginning together. Today, I want to encourage you, young bride or bride-to-be, that your husband's calling is your calling, too. Join him in that calling.

Wedding cards and love songs often offer words that conjure up an image of two young lovers on separate paths, but who, unbeknownst to them, have been headed in the same direction all their lives. Fate causes their paths to meet, they fall madly in love, and then this young, head-over-heels couple gets married.

In this scenario, the man and woman leave their original paths that brought them together, and the two of them begin a new path and a new life -- their new life together.

Stop. News flash: You are not starting a new life from scratch with your husband. Wives, I want to offer to you what I believe is a more Biblical model than the one I gave to you above. A dear friend of ours shared this secret with me when I was a newlywed, and it has helped me many times since then.

Rather than the tale of two young lovers forging a new life together, God has called you, young wife, to leave your own path, to jump on board your man's path, and to join him in his life and calling. His calling is your calling, too.

May I offer to you the story of the first man and his wife? God created all things in six days, and on the sixth day, He made a man. God created him of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. God gave this man a calling, a job, a vocation: he was to tend and keep the garden of Eden. God gave him work, purpose, and meaning.

And then, God said: "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him."

There was no suitable helper found for this man among any of creation, so God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept. While he was sleeping, God created a woman from one of the man's ribs, and then God brought the woman to the man.

Now, this woman, too, was given a calling, a job, and a vocation: Eve is called a "suitable helper" to her husband.

God gives Adam gifts and talents, and a path, a calling, and a job to do. And then God gives this man a wife to help him in his calling.

Eve is full to overflowing with gifts and talents, and this wife has a clear path, calling, and job: to help her husband in his work and life, bringing glory to the Father, sharing in fellowship with one another and with God.

Now, please don't misunderstand me, dear woman: You are an active participant in serving, glorifying, and loving God. You do not have limited access to God or to His direction and leading.

It may even be that God has joined you to your husband at a stage in his life where God has not yet revealed to him his life and vocation and calling, or God may call him to a different "path" sometime in your future.

However, in faith and trust of God, as a daughter of Sarah (1 Peter 3:1-6), faithfully follow God by seeing to it that you respect and honor and help your husband. Your husband's calling is your calling, too -- in whatever calling God places on his life. God has a plan for you and your husband -- a plan to bring glory to His holy name. As He reveals to the two of you the direction your life and work will go, you will be a richer and wiser woman to remember that, in your marriage, you are here for your husband -- not the other way around.

("For Adam was formed first, then Eve.." 1 Timothy 2:13.)

<3, amanda

Are you married? What is the best piece of marriage advice you would share with a young bride or bride-to-be?

..This post is happily shared with Living Proverbs 31, Fellowship Fridays, Family Fun Friday, Essential Fridays, Thoughtful Thursday, I Choose Joy, Thrive at Home Thursday {Link-Up}, the Titus 2sDay Link-Up Party, and Wifey Wednesday..

His Calling Is Your Calling, Too