Wine that makes the heart merry…

Today, I heard one of the loveliest and most profound wedding sermons ever at my baby girl’s wedding(which I streamed online by the way. She couldn’t wait for me to be physically present before going to have sex…lol…atopa bi !!!)

The sermon was preached by my Bishop’s husband who is also a Bishop. He talked about wine…how the Bible talks about wine making the heart merry (Ecclesiastes 10:19)…and how Jesus’ first miracle of turning water to wine brought lots of joy and gladness at a wedding.

He then went on to explain how after the wine got finished, Mary, the mother of Jesus got disturbed and said dabi da, I can’t watch the key element which is bringing joy at this celebration get finished and do nothing, so Jesus, do something about this. Now, if you really paid attention in Sunday school, you’d remember your teacher talked about how Jesus made the servants fill the pots with water and then he asked them to serve the guests with whatever they drew from the pots and how they simply obeyed and the chief organa at the wedding was upset that they were now bringing the best wine…kyerɛsɛ … nice miracle paaaaa….

Now, let me explain why I’ve had to do a recap of this Bible story…Bishop Bruce talked about the wine in a marriage.

Every marriage needs the wine…for the marriage to be sweet….for your hearts to be glad. This wine is not the yɛnnom mmo…12% – 47% drink responsibly type.

It’s about the little things that matter….the checking in on each other, the hellos and hi’s when you return home…walking each other to the door or the car or seeing each other off when going to work, holding hands, the subtle touches from time to time…the little little things that most times we tend to grow out of…

Then he talked about the water that Jesus instructed them to fill the pots with. In every relationship, it gets to a time when the wine gets finished. Etumi sa ! Dry! The bottle becomes empty. What happens when the sweetness is finished? When life happens and work stress , the stress of raising children or the lack of them, bills, all the numerous hats you wear – begin to weigh you down and your joy is finished? That is when you need water.

Water refreshes, quenches thirst, cools hot temperatures, makes things grow, makes trees evergreen…

So here is the thing…the merriment in marriage is in the intentional and deliberate watering…the intentional touching, talking, texting, writing notes, asking about each other’s days, putting phones away just to be with each other…that constant watering…that is what actually sustains relationships for decades. Till death.

Unfortunately, we live in a world that thinks for a marriage to work, it depends on a woman sitting and praying through the first watch of the night till the 2nd, getting up to fix the house and get everyone ready, going out to be a Proverbs 31 woman. She returns and then serves everyone till they are ready to go back to bed. Then she goes back to standing and praying without ceasing. A world that thinks a woman’s life should revolve around the man she married and that that’s what the Bible expects of a woman. And so if a marriage fails, it’s the woman’s fault that it did. It is this same world that blames childlessness on women, about 98% of the time. The same society that thinks unmarried women are worthless…

Let’s get back to talking about wine and water…if you are in a relationship or married, ask yourself, where is the wine? Where is the water? Do I play my part in making sure that our supply of wine and water is constant? Every day won’t be a happy day, I agree. But even on those tough days, where is your water – droplets of assurances – a “you mean so much to me…you have sultry eyes” said with a soft voice to make your partner feel you’re still as crazy about them now as you were before, a glass of random love notes to show you care – a “hey, you’re on my mind…just checking in” or a random gift to put a smile on his/her face…

The servants had to fill the pots with water in order to be able to witness this special miracle. There were no pipelines so I am sure they had to go down to the well to draw water…it took some efforts. Love takes effort. It requires intentionality. It requires patience. Imagine they came and just poured the water on the floors in their bid to rush back to the well…odo hia abotare… I am so sure when they were asked by Jesus to serve the water from the pots, they were baffled – “ah how?”

Nevertheless they quickly remembered Mary had asked them to do whatever He(Jesus) asked of them. Love requires faith. Believing in each other. Believing in each other’s dreams…

Herh…issokaaayyy wae….

Well, I had been meaning to write for a while now cos my mind is full of so many things. Life is, however, happening to me. I’m going through lots of extremely rough patches and I wasn’t sure I wanted to write yet, but this sermon I heard today was too good to keep to myself so here you go…sharing is caring…

Drink some wine and share that bottle with your partner….but most importantly, keep your supply of water constantly flowing. You will need it when the fires and drought come. And trust me…they do come…sooner than you’d imagine!

If your supply has dried up completely too, hmmmm….agye irrigation!!! Su frɛ Awurade sɛ ɔmmoa wo na ɛyɛ ne pɛ a, biribiara bɛyɛ yie!

Love. Always.

~ Rosario.