here comes the bride

currently, i have two friends that are engaged. this is a rare thing in our world as it seems it's just more and more people we are close to are getting knocked up. oh the passage of time...and don't get me wrong, babies are good. But i feel way more enthusiastic in seeing two people enter into the newly married stage than i do about the new parent stage. they have their similarities, no doubt: less sleep, less modesty, more responsibility, less freedom, more fun. but i LOVED just being two. i don't feel like the transition to marriage was nearly in any way as hard for me as it was transitioning into parenthood. i treasured, and maybe currently idolize, all that time Ash and i had as just the two of us.

this upcoming week, my friend C is getting married. i just recently learned about it (if not simply because it is a very short engagement) and it makes me so happy that this wedding is happening.  i have been very far and disconnected from it's circumstances, and will sadly also not be able to be present for the vows. yet i am so grateful for the hope that this wedding represents by it's very occurrence that it almost takes my breath away. like i said, i don't know as many of the details of all that has happened but i am so much more assured of the One who draws hearts together...the One who holds and heals hearts when they are so fragile and so pierced and bruised you think all hope is lost for this little one and why not just put it out of it's misery. I knew C and her first husband, D, when they lived across the street from us in Bhm. we spent a lot of time together, particularly on friday nights, and i loved it. When we moved to Boston and then D suddenly passed a couple of months later, i felt  insanely sad for a friend in a way that i never had before. i was paralyzed in my movement toward her b/c well, you just don't know what to say or do b/c you aren't physically there anymore to say or do like you would have done or would want to, so anything i said or did felt like nothing at all. and i was just thankful to hear that good people were close to her, loving her well, though not the way D did. and that made me even sadder for her. it paralyzed a lot of my thinking about God and how i thought He worked. it made me think not nice things at all about Him. and i couldn't pray for awhile. but then i did again, i guess. i haven't been able to imagine her grief, and am certain i cannot imagine the bittersweet joy in this new marriage. the quote from Wendell Berry's Hannah Coulter she put in the invitation says it all to me: But grief is not a force and has no power to hold. You only bear it. Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery. I am thankful for C and for her L.

C, i love you and am so thankful for your life and friendship. you have taught me more about being okay with mystery (even if it's against our wills) in your being just who you are. you are a bride that brings hope (among so many things, i know), down the aisle...in a way more beautiful to me than any other bride i have ever seen. i hope your weekend is full of joy and remembrance...and of laughter at the days ahead.