Carbon Copy of Christ

Today’s post takes us back to the mid 1990s so I thought the title went along well since if you were born after 1995, you probably have no clue what carbon paper is…

Almost twenty-three years ago (May 25, 1996), my new husband, Wade, and I left for our honeymoon. Our first night was in Nashville before heading the next morning toward Branson, Missouri.

See, I had searched and found a bed and breakfast online…in 1996. For those of you who are old enough to know, the “world wide web” was still in its baby stages. Basically newborn stages. Statistics report there were only 100,000 websites in January 1996, yet the bed and breakfast I found had a website! In the computer lab of the university I attended, I had searched on Webcrawler, my internet search browser of choice during that time, 😉 and found this amazing-looking place with a separate apartment area overlooking a bend in the broad Cooper Creek.

The morning after our wedding, we pulled out our trusty Rand McNally road atlas and figured out the roads we would take to cross the Mississippi River and head into Missouri. When Wade found out I had never been on a ferry, he was adamant we take one across, so we located one that made since to cross on our way. Unbeknownst to us, hours later we arrived at the ferry terminal to find it was still closed from the Great Flood of 1993. Uh yeah, so we drove back to a McDonald’s we had passed and regrouped to figure out how in the world we were going to get across. Thankfully, we sat at a table beside a family who were deciding the same thing, therefore when they exited the restaurant, so did we.

Trying to discreetly trail this family, after about maybe five or ten miles down the road, the father must have realized it…or he had drank a bunch of coffee (1996 was before energy drinks), as his foot got heavy and his car took off. As did we. It was quite hysterical but nerve-wracking as well, because the erratic driver was our GPS to get us across the Mississippi River. Eventually, he had dangerously passed one too many cars for us to stay close enough to follow, but we knew the direction we were going now and could let Mr. McNally take us the rest of the way.

The adventure of marriage definitely started on our honeymoon! Here we are almost twenty-three years later and while it’s a natural thing for a man and woman to come together in marriage, it’s not always smooth sailing. There will be times in life that even though you are in the Lord’s will, rough waters will hit.

Hopefully, the longer you are together you can weather those storms a bit easier. You know each other’s weaknesses and strengths and work together better as a team.

You may have heard the longer married couples are together, the more they resemble one another. This should apply to our Christian life as well. As we continue to grow in our Christian walk, the more alike Christ we should become.

Of course we won’t be completely sanctified until we go to heaven, but the Lord commands us to “follow His steps” (1 Peter 2:21). By reading and obeying His word, praying, and worshipping Him, we know Him more and become more like Him.

Remember those old carbon copies of the 1990s? When you had a sheet of the carbon paper between two pieces of paper, whatever you wrote on the top sheet would be copied to the bottom sheet. (By the way, I used to fish the used ones out of the trash as an elementary school kid when my teacher threw them away. 😂)

We should try to emanate Christ’s characteristics. Look at the fruit of the Spirit for examples. Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”

Our atlas in this Christian life is the Bible. It is the inerrant word of God that should lead us in every area.

So while after almost twenty-three years of marriage, Wade and I are more alike than ever, my true desire is to be more like Christ. As Christians, let us strive to be a carbon copy of Christ. 💕