Love and Weddings

Annie was the perfect bride. Her dress, made in Germany, was absolutely stunning. She wore little white flowers in her hair and carried a bouquet of white and red roses. Her man? A Navy lieutenant fully decked out in his crisp white uniform. As they were leaving the church after the ceremony, the couple walked through an Arch of Swords. It was just like a movie: romantic and beautiful.

I'm always surprised when I cry at weddings because I know the drill. I've attended slightly less than 278 (yeah, I went to CNU). But watching Annie dance with the man of her dreams just naturally caused tears to well up. I was realizing that the girl I "grew up with" for three years of college was now someone's wife. She even had our favorite sonnet read at the ceremony:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

-William Shakespeare

I love this poem because I memorized it in my favorite class for my favorite teacher in high school. But I also love it because it's so real. Shakespeare spells out for us exactly what love is and is not. It does not change when it discovers a fault or seek to transform the other by removing annoying habits. Those are two things women are good at. We get these insecurities and it's like the only way we know how to hold on is to press in harder. That's why we get a reputation for "nagging". We know what it is we want so we try overly hard to get it. That's why Sara Groves describes grace as "an invitation to be beautiful." As we give grace to those who don't give us exactly what we want from them, we become beautiful and more like the Lord. A woman who gives grace is not only beautiful, but loving. Her love is an "ever fixed mark" because it comes out of an overabundance of the love she is receiving from her Father God. That's the kind of love I want to give; the kind that is beautiful, selfless and unbridled by time or age.

My prayer is that maybe one day the Lord will transform me into that kind of woman- who is clothed with a gracious love and laughs at the days to come.

In the meantime, after all of my tears and celebration tonight, my wallet and I are thankful to announce that the wedding season has ended- at least for this year. My boyfriend will be happy to announce that I did not catch the bouquet, in fact I screamed and backed away as it fell to my feet. Ah yes, free and easy down the road I go...

Until next spring and the next batch of CNU engagements.

Chapstick and God

I have discovered that there are two things I know I will never run out of in this lifetime: mascara and chapstick. They seem to just multiply in their respective drawers. Sometimes I wonder if the mascara and chapstick companies ever got together and decided to specifically target me. They KNOW that as soon as they come out with another one of their endless varieties that I will HAVE to call their bluff and try their new product to see if it really does everything it claims. The problem is that they win in the end because as soon as I "try" the product, I've already purchased it and it is either fantastic and worthy of everyday use or it is doomed to a life of neglect at the bottom of the makeup drawer. My overly full makeup drawer can speak to the dilemma this cause.

Some things I have too much of- like mascara and chapstick and probably ice cream. But there are a few things that I will never ever get enough of- like the way my heart stops for a few seconds every time I turn the corner in Hburg and see those mountains, or the way the "aliveness" stirs up inside me every time I capture a good picture. Some things I not only will never have enough of, but I must fight for on a daily basis. Things like belief and trust in the Lord's faithfulness and Sovereign plan. It is hard to live in the tension of believing in the Lord's goodness, yet not actively resting in that on a day to day basis. My fears of failure and inadequacy are all rooted in my unbelief in the character of the Lord, yet how do I make my heart just believe? Through Scripture and the Holy Spirit- two things I also will never get enough of.

As I write this there is a screaming fest going on between the house across the street from me and a house further on down the street. One kid will scream as loud as he can for as long as he can and the other kid retaliates from down the street. It would be quite amusing if I did not have a migraine headache. However, it is reminding me of a simple truth- that kids have an abundance of energy for one, but also that they have an abundance of faith in who they are. If they feel like screaming at the top of their lungs they will do so, without regard to anyone around them. That sense of pure exhilaration and freedom is beautiful. I long to be like that. To unashamedly be who I am with enough belief in the Lord that I am free to delight in any circumstance.

I guess I just don't like change. Don't get me wrong, I love seasons, especially Fall. Football games and sweatshirts and crunchy leaves and bonfires and apples and hiking- I love it all. But I'm realizing that as much as I love to get to the place I've been trying to go to, I get there and find difficulties. I love new things, but I love old things better. I love ways that are tried and true, and changing for me is difficult. However, no one grows if they never change and so here I am, in the midst of the changes of not being a student and trying to live in the real world working two jobs and paying rent and insurance and learning to believe more that God is good. One thing I do know for sure: I will always have enough chapstick.