No, today is a huge day because my youngest son is getting married. This is a first for us, and the next in a line of major milestones. Births, baptisms, kindergarten, teenagers, driver’s license, high school graduation, college graduation, engagement, and now wedding. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Kase.......I'll stop before the newlyweds rebuke me for rushing things
When we found out our youngest was going to be born I was getting ready to begin preaching school and I was younger than he is today. I’m sure I was scared but more than anything I was excited. I’ve always wanted to be a daddy and I love every part of it. I haven’t loved every moment we’ve gone through as parents, but I love every part of being a dad. From the day I knew this boy existed I have been praying about this day.
I’ve prayed that I would raise him to be they type of man worthy of being someone’s husband. I’ve prayed for the parents who would raise his future wife, that they would instill in her a love for God and His word. I have prayed for his wife, long before I knew her name was Cidney. It would be twenty-one years before I would get to meet her and come to know that my prayers for her were answered. I prayed she would love the Lord with all her heart and when I met her I learned she was filled with so much love and spirit that God had to make two of her to hold it all (for those who may not know, Cidney is a twin). I’ve been praying for this day for a long, long time and my prayers are being answered. Everything is coming about just like I’ve always hoped, planned, and dreamed it would…..well, almost.
There are people dearly loved that we wish were here, and once we wish wasn't. An uninvited guest decided to crash the wedding -- and all of our lives -- and at the last minute forced a radical change in all of the months of planning. Out of concern that Corona would be the plus one of hundreds of guests, these two kids demonstrated tremendous maturity and wisdom and changed course. It won't be the last time that life throws their marriage an unexpected curve ball, but it was the first, and they handled it with the skill and grace of an old married couple. The most important boxes are still being checked: Godly son, check. Godly daughter-in-love, check.
Last year when they got engaged the biggest concern was if her twin sister’s husband would be back from Kosovo on a military deployment in time to be in the wedding. Pandemic quarantines wouldn’t have even made the top ten list of potential wedding day disrupters. Asteroid, maybe. North Korean missile launch, possibly. But worldwide virus? None of us knew we’d be facing this. When the details for this day began to be made last summer, the last thing on anyones mind was a contagion contingency plan, but here we are. Everyone wanted it to be the perfect Pinterest wedding day, but more than anything my prayer has been for this day to be the beginning of a Bible based marriage.
Looking at the cake and decorations and dresses and food my mind wanders back to the wedding feasts in my Bible and I’m reminded that the most memorable weddings often don’t go according to plan either. Jacob thought he was marrying Rachel and ends up with Leah — I’m pretty sure this became a country song, “I’m in love with you baby and I don’t even know your name…” Jesus once told a story about a wedding that was missing half the bridal party because they forgot to buy their stuff for the wedding until the wedding day (Matthew 25:1-13). That would be like the bridesmaids not trying on their dresses until the day of the wedding, finding out they don’t fit, and then rushing off to the mall to find a new dress before they start playing “Here Comes The Bride.” No self respecting bridesmaid today would be so foolish. Now groomsmen on the other hand…..
There may not be any Pinterest pages dedicated to "the perfect pandemic wedding", but there are biblical blueprints for marriages overcoming adversity. Perhaps the most famous wedding in the Bible involved the first miracle of Jesus. John 2 tells us the story of a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and it did not go as planned either. Picture the scene: the bride and groom have said their “I do’s” and everyone is laughing and talking, maybe even singing, and eating, but the caterer has a distressed look on his face. The wait at the drink table is longer than a Chik-Fil-A lunch line, and word is spreading that they just refilled the jars with water. “Water?!?! I didn’t put on my fancy (and uncomfortable) sandals and my ‘sabbath-go-to-meetin’ robe just to eat hummus and drink water.” The caterers reputation and business will likely be ruined once people start giving him bad Yelp! reviews, not to mention the gossip that will go around Galilee about how the family was too cheap to serve anything but water at their own child’s wedding. Before things can get ugly, Mary steps in and asks Jesus to do something. Although Jesus reminds His mother that this isn’t exactly what the Lord had in mind when He took on flesh, His compassion and love take priority and Jesus ensures the marriage gets off to a good start. Even if you have a perfect wedding day, you won’t have a perfect marriage, because all marriages are made of two imperfect people.
Two things jump off the page when you read this story, both of which are good advice for overcoming adversity in marriage, or life in general: be a servant and do whatever Jesus tells you. Life is imperfect and doesn’t always go according to plan. We shouldn’t stop planning and preparing, but we should also make sure that we learn to adapt. For our family it was a wedding that was affected, for others it was a senior year, a state championship, a dream vacation, a job, and for all of us, church assemblies. We didn’t plan on any of this, but we can adapt. We can adapt the same way those in John 2 did: be a servant and do whatever Jesus tells you.
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