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Friday, March 18, 2011

Wedding

I'm linking this post to Mary's blog, Giving Up on Perfect, and am writing about subjects that she's chosen for the next seven Thursdays:

March 10 – Baptism
March 17 – Wedding
March 24 – Funeral
March 31 – Worship
April 7 – Bible study
April 14 – Prayer
April 21 – Communion


I haven't been to many weddings. In fact after searching my memory (always a challenge) I realize that I have attended eight weddings and one of them was my own. The lack of weddings simplified my thoughts by not having a lot of memories to sift through. And since my memory is what it is, I decided to focus on the most recent wedding that I attended and how I learned to lean fully on God.

Our nephew John was getting married in July 2009 to a lovely woman, Meg. The excitement had been building with the younger generation having their bachelorette and bachelor weekends away, and a bridal shower that had included the older generation. (Read: I was included with the older generation festivities.)

Life seemed to be gliding along when our other nephew Gregory received a diagnosis of adrenal cancer.

Gregory and John are cousins and had grown up together to be like brothers. Gregory has three siblings, John has two siblings.

Gregory was all set to be the best man at John's wedding but the timing... oh the timing was working against him. Gregory had major surgery and was hoping to attend the wedding but was still recovering. We (the rest of the family) had been "wrung through the wringer" of receiving encouraging reports about Gregory's condition followed by discouraging reports.

I believe that God had His hands all over the timing of events.

We needed some joy during this time.

We needed to shift our focus toward two people who were starting their married lives together.

We needed a celebration.

We needed God's grace to hold our weak parts together while witnessing the beginning of two lives showing their love for each other.

It was a day filled with blessings and a reception filled with happiness and love. Thank you God!

I leaned heavily on God that day and He took care of me. He took care of us.

(As a post script: God knew what was coming when Gregory died in December 2009, yet He continued to hold us together so we could celebrate Gregory's short life too. Thank you God!)

Thank you Mary for choosing this topic for today.

Please visit Giving Up on Perfect to read what Mary and others have written about weddings.

Do you have a memory or some thoughts you'd like to share about a wedding?

2 comments:

  1. Such a sweet, sad story. Life seems to be filled with those, doesn't it? Thanks so much for posting this one.

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  2. Cindy, I'm so sorry for your loss. But what a blessing to see God working anyway!

    It's interesting that you've only been to eight or so weddings. I'm glad you chose this one to share with us. Thank you for linking up!

    ReplyDelete

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