DENISE “God Gave Me You” Blake Shelton is a country songwriter who wrote the song “God Gave Me You”. We have the lyrics printed for you so you can reflect upon them at a later time, but we wanted to highlight the chorus as well as a few of the lyrics in the stanzas: The chorus goes like this: “God gave me you for the ups and downs God gave me you for the days of doubt For when I think I've lost my way There are no words here left to say, it's true God gave me you”

Then, a few of the more beautiful lyrics included in the stanzas are: “There's more here than what we’re seeing A divine conspiracy”, and…. “On my own I'm only Half of what I could be I can't do without you We are stitched together And what love has tethered I pray we never undo”

ERIC We’ve all heard that the most important job we have as a husband or wife is to help get each other to heaven. This is why we teach that a Catholic marriage is not only a sacrament, but also a vocation. When a husband and wife get married in the Catholic Church, they are affirming that they believe God has chosen them to play an essential role in each other’s sanctification – second only to the saving power of Jesus Christ (From Catholic Website – Our Sunday Visitor).

But what if we look upon our spouse a little differently….what if we look upon our spouse as a gift from God, placed in our life in order to help get us to heaven. It’s a subtle difference, but imagine thinking of your spouse not only as your best friend, your partner, your lover, but also as a hand-chosen gift from God, given to us not only to make our life here on earth beautiful and fulfilling, but also to remind us of God’s love and how much He wants us to join Him in heaven. God gave us the one person on earth most capable of getting us to heaven! What a gift!

DENISE: Blake Shelton, the songwriter, was asked how he would describe “God Gave Me You” and he answered….”most of us have people we are thankful for, people we have great appreciation for, and it’s hard to believe that we meet those people randomly, but rather that there was some divine providence in their involvement in our lives.”

Yes! God gave us our spouse. It was a divine conspiracy. We couldn’t have possibly found or chosen the one person on earth who was most perfect for us without divine intervention, especially when we think of the many varied ways that spouses have happened upon one another in their lives.

ERIC: So…our spouse is not only a gift from God, but a perfect gift from God. Think of all of the gifts you’ve received in your life, reflect upon the ones which were the most special, the most perfect, and then look at your spouse with a renewed realization that he or she an even more perfect gift than that. Perfect because God know everything about us, and only He could know who the perfect spouse for us could be.

Writer Howard Tayler defined the perfect gift like this: “The perfect gift is the one you didn’t know existed, but once you open it you realize it’s what you’ve always wanted.”

DENISE: How beautiful is that? Eric and I met in high school. We were friends, nothing more, although I always though Eric was a lot of fun and really funny! He was two years ahead of me and went off to college when I was starting my junior year. We wrote occasional letters (yes, we were pre-social media and actually wrote letters), but really didn’t connect again until the fall of my senior year when Eric called to ask if I wanted to go to a party with him. Sure! Sounded like fun! The party was OK, but what came of it was a spark between us that had never existed before. I have never doubted that God brought us back together at precisely the right time for both of us to be ready for a relationship beyond friendship. There is no other explanation. Why else would a college sophomore subject himself to yet another high school prom? Because God wanted us to be together. Eric is God’s perfect gift to me, and when we were friends in high school I never even knew it, but once God opened my eyes to His plan, I realized that Eric was what I always wanted!

ERIC: While many events, activities, and parties from the past seem pretty faded in my memory these days, the party that fall remains pretty clear. I don’t remember why I thought of inviting Denise, especially since it was all college aged people and Denise was still in High School, but I can still remember the basement apartment, the sliding glass door to the yard, and how much I enjoyed being there with Denise. It’s funny because the party itself wasn’t one of those legendary parties, in fact it was a fairly quiet party. But something was lite inside me, because I remember how excited I was when I returned back to college, and told one of my friends what an amazing evening I had with Denise. Thinking back… What made it so amazing?... God gave me Denise.

DENISE: Consider for a moment the gift God gave you, when he gave you your spouse. Describe in loving details the feelings you feel when you consider your spouse as a gift from God.