A year ago this week I cancelled 120 wedding invitations, waited for “non-essential” businesses to open back up six days before my wedding so I could make any appointments for dress alterations and hair, hoped that there would be no rain during the 60 minutes allotted by the wedding venue to hold a ceremony during COVID—and had perfect peace.
In March when COVID struck Springfield, the Lord gave me Psalm 46 everywhere I looked and listened: sermons, sunsets, songs, Scripture, and sweet friends. The signature verse is this: “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” (v. 10, ESV). A peaceful stillness rooted in His sovereignty governed my springtime. People kept telling me how sorry they were for me that my wedding plans weren’t turning out: but their well-meant sympathy was misplaced emotion: I was in perfect peace. We always had the choice to delay until a celebration with more people and fewer restrictions could take place: but we chose to marry as soon as schedules would allow.
I’ve been known to painstakingly deliberate over everything from switching college majors to morning cereal choices, taking as much time as needed to make the best possible decision. But when it came to Mark, with so many God-handed confirmations and unprecedented synchronicities, I didn’t give this choice a second thought. Our unique, eventful paths crossed at a time when we weren’t looking for a significant other, and we found an other more significant than we have ever known. To align in dreams and daydreams, in likes and in loves, in fun and family backgrounds, well, we could fill books (not that I didn’t print out six books of our text messages for his birthday).
God gave me perfect peace last spring that His plans were working out, not ours. But oh, the joy when we delight ourselves in the Lord and He gives us the desires of His heart (Psalm 37:4)—for then those desires are His.
Our “COVID wedding” resulted in quality time with my mother (on Mother’s Day, no less!), giving us precious hours of just mother and daughter to prepare for one of the most significant ceremonies of my life. The wedding cancellations enabled us to broadcast the wedding over social media so that more of our friends could watch than could fit in that chapel. I got to know Mark’s extended family as we ate tacos together on a back porch (in my wedding dress, of course). It was perfect and peaceful.
And as for the man I married: well, let me say that I fall for him every day in just the same way that I first fell in love with him two years ago. I don’t know what it’s like to not be in the “honeymoon stage” because I’ve never had a closer friend. It seems to me (and Mark agreed) that today feels like a celebration of one year or one hundred years or one day – all seem the same in a bright timeless forever from day one. A. A. Milne had it right in his book Winnie the Pooh: “‘Any day spent with you is my favorite day,’ Pooh said, ‘So today is my favorite day.’”
Happy one-year anniversary, best friend.
PC: Portrait Novella