The couple who moved to our street several months ago were married yesterday in their backyard. I've never met these people, but I love a wedding. My guilty pleasure -- when Husband is out-of-town and the house grows too quiet at night -- is wedding reality shows, in which soon-to-be brides "say yes to the dress" or receive assistance from a professional wedding planner to turn their half-baked ideas into something more tasteful.
So, though we joked with other neighbors about jointly turning on our chainsaws at 5pm or allowing the children to try out water balloon launchers, the whole neighborhood was hushed and still at 5pm. A wedding feels sacred, even when it's not in a church or officiated by a minister, even when you don't know the bride and groom. It's a vow-of-a-lifetime, a commitment of great worth to be entered with serious conviction.
The weather was perfect yesterday at 5pm, I realized with satisfaction. I wanted these not-yet-known neighbors to have a beautiful start to their married life. And 76 degrees with bright sunshine is just about as perfect as you can find around here. The rhododendrums and irises were in resplendent bloom, and the grass was lush and thick. Wedding weather.
I was reminded of my own wedding weather. A naive 22-year-old, I planned our reception outdoors in the middle of August. Oh, I knew how hot and humid and buggy mid-August could be, but the romantic in me, planning the wedding during a cold, dark Michigan winter, pictured the ideal summer day, with clean, happy children blowing bubbles in the grass, a string quartet playing beside the punch bowl, me in my white dress standing beside my handsome groom and surrounded by the people we love. The backdrop, so essential that I took it for granted, was a sunny summer day, not too hot and not too cold.
As the day came closer, I realized just how rare these perfect days were. The real possibilities of rain and mosquitoes and a wedding dress drenched in sweat kept me awake at night. I reserved the dark basement of the chapel as a back-up reception area, but the place depressed me. A dismal basement without natural light did not fit my dreamy picture of a wedding reception, that once-in-a-lifetime party. And so I prayed, sheepishly, for wedding weather. The God I serve is majestic and holy; I felt frivolous asking Him for a special favor. At the time, I did not see myself as the King's daughter who could approach her Daddy's throne for anything, even a stick of candy. And so I pleaded with Him with a sense of shame at my selfishness. I thought about farmers in need of rain and starving children in Africa and all the world of bigger, more important requests. Feeling I had already sunk low in making with my selfishness, I decided I might as well stoop even lower. "Dear God," I prayed. "I'll make a bargain with You: if You will give me perfect wedding weather on August 14 just this once, I PROMISE I will never again make a weather-related prayer request." I knew God could do it, but I felt bad asking.
The weather on August 14 was perfect. It was sunny and warm. Not too warm. Not too humid. Not mosquito-filled. Our wedding reception was held outdoors on a perfect green lawn with a string quartet and little sisters and cousins blowing bubbles. The cake didn't melt. Neither did the bride. And she was more aware than ever of an answered prayer and perfect wedding weather.
As far as I can recall, I have kept my promise to never again pray for good weather. When I wonder if the weather will be agreeable for a beach trip or vacation, I return in gratitude to my wedding weather prayer and am again reminded of answered prayers. I see that God could use that answer to teach me that He is powerful enough to control the weather, yet gentle enough to care about the little things. His domain is over all.
Although I have been grateful for this wedding gift for 18 years, I know it wasn't God's biggest gift that day: I was blessed by the presence of people who surrounded us in love; I was blessed by my choice in Husband. I recognize that this choice was more the result of God's goodness and grace than of my good decision-making skills: I was as naive about the possibility of stormy marriages as I was about stormy wedding days. But God has blessed my marriage. It hasn't been all sunny days, but it has been many sunny days and the strength of endurance through the stormy ones. His providence covers that too. Joy!
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