Your wedding day is a precious gift from God, a day when family and friends surround you and bless you, expressing their love and joy and support for you and your groom. But if you could possibly take all their smiling faces and put them together, they still wouldn’t be as big as the smile your heavenly Father wears as He looks down on you on your special day. “As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so …your God [is rejoicing] over you” (Isaiah 62:5) right now.

Still, as wonderful and beautiful as your wedding is, it’s only one day …and a wedding does not make a marriage. If you are going to be what Scripture calls a “wife of noble character” (Proverbs 31:10), it’s going to take a daily commitment—a daily decision to renew your vows to your groom.

Remember that marriages—even those made in heaven—are not perfect, and neither is the groom! There will be times when your husband will perplex, anger and irritate you. There will be days when dirty socks on the floor, lack of communication and puzzling priorities make you want to put him out on Tuesday with the trash. But those are the times when a “wife of noble character” will prove herself.

Those are the times when, if you would be fully loved, you must love him fully, because it is when your love is challenged the most that it will shine the brightest.

Speaking of that, I urge you not to shoot for perfection in your marriage; instead, shoot for intimacy. And the only way to be intimate with another person is to be vulnerable about who you are, what you think and what you feel. Let it always be the real you that your husband is in love with and not some variation or imitation.

Also, keep in mind that marriage is not a due; it is a trio. Therefore, show yourself to be a woman of God in everything you do. After all, this is one of the reasons your groom chose you in the first place, and you can do nothing better to strengthen and preserve your marriage than to remember that “charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised” (Proverbs 31:30).

Seek out older women to mentor you, as the Bible commands in Titus 2:3-5. Look for godly women who have solid marriages and learn from them.

I advise you to make your mother-in-law your best friend. No woman on earth knows your groom any better than she does, and that’s wisdom that can’t be bought for any amount of money.

And be sensitive to your parents too, as they adjust—not so much to your groom, but to their daughter as a wife! The Bible is clear that you and your new husband must truly and completely leave your parents and cleave to each other, but that won’t always be an easy process for your mom and dad. Help them through it, even as you make sure that your groom is always your top priority.

And finally, don’t ever ask yourself, “How can I get more out of my marriage?” or even, “How can my husband get more out of our marriage?” Ask, “How can God get more glory from our marriage?”

With that kind of attitude, the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of the glory God bestows on your marriage. And your husband will arise and call you blessed, saying, “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all” (Proverbs 31:29).

It’s a wonderfully unique book which goes through each part of the wedding vows (”To Have and to Hold, For Better or for Worse, For Richer, or for Poorer, In Sickness and in Health, Forsaking All Others, To Love and to Cherish, Till Death Do Us Part”) and tells actual events on each of these subjects about real people—who are choosing to live out the vows they made on their wedding days. We love true stories that we can learn through and this book is packed with them!

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